This week I have been looking at surveys which I thought would be pretty straight forward but got more complex as the week went on! I am going to save my reflections on surveys until next weeks blog, but this is my attempt at the second activity which was to create a small survey regarding the use of a social media by a specific group.
I decided to choose a group I work with quite a lot here in Switzerland which is students from mainland China who are experiencing studying outside of their home country for the first time and their use of facebook - the majority do not have Facebook accounts when they arrive as most are experienced users of a platform called Wechat, but this puts them in the minority compared to all other nationalities where Facebook is the main social media platform used prior to starting their studies. I started to put together a mindmap and survey but the more I thought about it the more convoluted it got and I am now veering towards the impression that a survey would not work very well with this research question and that perhaps interviews or focus groups would be more effective way of going forwards with this research. However, I have persevered though I am sure there are some BIG holes in my questions, so all feedback is appreciated! One important note is that I think before this survey there would be a need for a provisional survey or auditing so that the students who would take this survey would already be determined as those who created a Facebook account after starting their studies. Below you will find my initial mindmap on the research question and the survey itself.
2 Comments
Well, last week I was mildly confused, this week I feel like I have totally fallen into the rabbit hole as I have grappled (unsuccessfully I think) with discourse analysis. As I am interested in areas of socio-materiality I thought this would be a good method to look at and possibly use in the future.
I really should have known, if I am honest, that I was going to struggle with this - in my undergraduate days I remember struggling terribly as someone who will openly confess to have an ‘enlightenment’ type of thinking, with post-modern and post-structuralist theory - even the sniff of the name ‘Foucault’ should have had me running in the opposite direction. But I was very intrigued about discourse analysis - what makes it different from the analysis of interviews, or grounded theory with its codification? Outside of linguistics, what is the role of discourses analysis? I am not sure I have yet reached a conclusion. . . In the videos and texts I have read, there seems to be more a consensus of what it is not rather than what it is (for example, Antaki et al, 2003) - it is not summarising or using selective quotations to confirm or refute a particular concept. It is something which adds to the understanding of a discourse or text - two of the most understandable resources I found was the video (Wiggins, 2017) describing the different ‘schools’ of discourse analysis as belonging on a spectrum of lenses from the ‘wide angled’ to the ‘zoom’, from analysing at a wider societal level of Foucauldian analysis with its focus on relations of power and knowledge to the zoom lens of conversational analyses which pulls apart the verbal dynamics of an individual discourse. The other was the chapter from Gee (2006) where he defines the work of discourse analysts as the ‘. . . study of how speakers and writers use clues or cues (namely, syntax and discourse) to shape the interpretations and actions of listeners and readers.’ (p20). Though I think a lot of discourse analysts would refute this as far too general to really define what they do, I have found this as a workable starting point for a method which I have in turn found very appealing and incredibly difficult to understand at exactly the same time. One of my research interests is in the way the implementation of a specific device into my organisation may (or may not) have changed the way our students work with, relate to and use that device as part to their study life and if the fact they have been ‘made’ to use this device has in some way affected their relationship to it ( I can remember the difference between being ‘made’ to read Lord of the Flies at school and then reading it by choice when I was much older and the difference in my feelings towards the novel and relationship to it). It may well be that discourse analysis will indeed allow me to analyse the ‘clues and cues’ which are part of discourse but I do feel currently that my research question is too broad and that for this research method to be really useful I really need to decide on which lens I would like to use. Or maybe I just need to find another rabbit hole. . . . . References: Antaki, C., Billig, M., Edwards, D. and Potter, J. (2003) Discourse analysis means doing analysis: A critique of six analytic shortcomings, Discourse Analysis Online, 1(1), 1-22 Gee, J.P. (2011) An introduction to discourse analysis: theory and method, Abingdon, Routledge. Wiggins, S. (2017) An introduction to discourse analysis [Video], London. Sage. What kind of topics are you interested in researching?
I am primarily interested in the way that technology can change or effect student behaviour and practices. This includes anonymity and participation, and developments in socio-materiality. As you can see I have some really fuzzy ideas at the moment! What initial research questions might be starting to emerge for you? Does anonymity lead to higher levels of participation, especially within an international student community? How do student practices change in regard to technology when the technology is imposed on them? • What are you interested in researching? In all honesty, its probably a bit of everything. My research topic is very focused on my own institution (well, they have paid for most of it after all!), though I feel that if I had to really pin it down I would say people and groups (relating to anonymity) and documents and images (relating to socio-materiality) Do you have an initial ideas for the kinds of methods that might help you to gather useful knowledge in your area of interest? The quiz on the MOOC suggested qualitative methods, discourse analysis and ethnography. I feel my topics definitely fall into the general area of qualitative rather than quantitative though I must admit I find what could be termed the more ‘scientific’ nature of quantitative rather comforting. • What initial questions do you have about those methods? These methods I understand in general but I don’t have much experience of using them myself and feel I would really need some practical examples to be able to either apply them myself or to evaluate them. Do you perceive any potential challenges in your initial ideas? My impression is that both discourse analysis and ethnography are quite labour intensive methods of collecting data, though I believe will provide much ‘richer’ information than surveys and questionnaires. Though I cannot envisage any issues with gaining access to a research group, I am concerned that as a member of staff students may not feel able to be completely honest in their answers, which makes me think that some sort of ethnographic research would be more beneficial. On a conceptual level, I am not quite sure that any findings could be objectively classified as either ‘truth’ or ‘facts’ as they are both principally focused on a very specific situation (international school community, for example). |
AuthorLisa Peel - MSc student, Librarian and permanently exhausted ArchivesCategories |