Chris McNulty Journal entry 1 8/28/13 Today was my formal introduction into the world of Qualitative research.

I had had some knowledge about qualitative research from some of my other classes, mainly my Multiculturalism in education class, in which I was told we were going to be using Qualitative methods without me really knowing what that meant. I had expected that in the first class after general introductions we would get things started with a general introduction of what qualitative research is as well as what we would be doing under the banner of qualitative research. My expectation was not met. Instead Professor Henne Oche presented us with what on the surface is a simple question. That question was what is truth? This seems like a very simple and easy question, however as soon as the conversation started it became apparent that this would be much harder to answer than we originally thought as the class was silent for the first minute or so after the question was asked. When it began the statement was made that some things are just true for example the black board is black. Cherra, whom I know a little bit from outside of class due to her involvement in various clubs, said that she did not agree with this ending with her comment that the black bored looked fairly grey from her perspective. Originally part of me thought she was just playing devils advocate and was perhaps making a bit of an argument for arguments sake, and admittedly part of me still thinks that. However her idea did get me thinking about my own about an education point I had once been taught, when exactly I was taught this point I dont remember, but it is the thought that to a degree when children are born you could teach them almost anything, normally people conform to what society views as correct and black is black. However what if someone decided to teach their child that black was in fact white. That child would look at the black board and see that it was white and would call it such. I then put for the point to that

child the fact that the board was white would be true to that child. This got very thoughtful looks from some of the class and eye rolls from the rest. It did however open up the discussion on what exactly truth meant and before the conversation ended it seemed that we came to the conclusion that in some ways society defines truth which I agree with. I also took away the thought that in some ways an old video game saying was correct stating, Nothing is true (Assassins Creed) The final exercise of the day was an exercise in which we were told to describe a raisin. As they were passed out I and several others realized that the box they were being passed out in said dried cranberries. As a result I became convinced what was in front of me was indeed a dried cranberry not a raisin and that the professor was testing our observational skills seeing who would believe what they were told and believe that this cranberry was in fact a raisin. We were told to observe the raisin and write down things we found about it. The entire time I pointed out some general facts about it, the most important one being that it was in fact not a raisin but a cranberry. I went on and on about all the ways that it was not a raisin but a cranberry. I even tasted it and noted how much sweeter than a raisin it was. At the end of the exercise and coincidently at the end of the lesson I was so excited to report about my cranberry only to learn that in fact it was a raisin 9/2 I admit I cut my prior entry off a little pre maturely as we did discuss the raisin a little bit more in the prior class but I felt that it was more appropriate to discuss it in this one. We talked a bit about everything we knew to be true about the raisin such as what it looked like and felt like and how I thought it was a dried cranberry but wasnt. We did this until the end of the prior class when the professor put the cranberry in sprite and made it dance. While a small thing it showed how the context of a situation could change everything. It was this small truth that we spent the good first half of this class discussing.

Over the course of this conversation we began discussing everything we thought we knew about the raisin including the fact that I thought it was a cranberry and was absolutely convinced of such. Only the professor admitting that the bowl was the only one he had dissuaded me at the very end and made me feel a bit like a fool. That said while I felt a little foolish I am glad I made the mistake that I did. The reason being that while yes it was a bit foolish it showed two very important things. One it showed the class and caused discussion on how the context of what youre looking at is very important and two on a personal level it reminded me that sometimes you may be wrong and that that is okay as it doesnt make the things you observe any less true. This is actually swayed into another conversation about truth that took most of the rest of class but before I discuss that I want to point out that my being wrong actually made the good point of how you may look at something one way while doing research that maybe proven incorrect it doesnt mean your observations werent there what that means I am not sure just yet. I need to think on it a bit more. Again this once more caused a discussion about truth. In this discussion people tried to show that there were some cold hard facts that were just true, like the number of casualties in a battle. I then countered that that is not true as that number could vary vastly depending on what you considered when deciding what was a casualty and the fact that that number may have missed a few. The professor then even pointed out that that number was probably biased on both sides to show that while we lost many they lost more. These kinds of situations in which there were true hard facts were discussed for a greater length during which myself and others showed that perhaps there was more to these situations, Im sure that some viewed me as just being annoying or difficult but that is alright. We then broke into small group discussions to discuss truth. Meg and I had a very enlightening discussion in which we came to the conclusion that while there is no overarching truth there is an individuals truth as well as things individuals except as true in order to function about their day to day lives. We then as a group discussed how as this was what we viewed as true and as humans were so complex there was no

way we would learn everything and yet qualitative researchers tried anyway. To me this was actually very cool as in conjunction with the raisin discussion it showed that you could observe almost anything and while it may not prove true nor can you know anything you are still learning and growing both as an individual and as a society which I found to be really cool.

9/4 The readings we had to do for last class as well as the discussion today actually introduce us to some qualitative methods. We also had a lovely presentation about Perkins article Gods Choice and how it showed the products of qualitative research. While discussing this even before the presentation we got onto the topic of bias and informal versus formal writing. In traditional science ones bias is viewed as bad and should be as far removed as possible from ones research and as a result you are supposed to leave all your personal feelings at the door as it were. While that might be all well and good for some forms of science like chemistry it is simply not possible in Qualitative research as it is the very science of dealing with people and as a rule I dont think you can separate yourself from what you think and believe. At first it seemed that the class thought bias should be avoided and Im sure some still do but at least the majority seemed to accept the idea that it is impossible to be completely unbiased and so the discussion shifted to the thought of how much bias is too much or where should we draw the line. I am of the belief that in some ways we shouldnt. I agree that we should acknowledge our biases in any article we write but we should still allow ourselves to state what we see and feel through our lens of

viewing the world as in truth we really cant avoid this nor should we have to try. By stating where we are coming from we warn the reader and allow them to draw their own conclusions which may or may not be in line with ours. If they are great and if they are not perhaps they have thought of something that we as the original authors completely overlooked. This discussion about bias transitioned into how much personal tone in writing is too much. It was posed that with too much personal writing the author might unjustly sway people to their line of thinking I then pointed out that if you know what you are doing you can make numbers in statistics dance to say almost whatever you want and in my mind that is in some ways worse as people tend to accept numbers as gospel more than they accept well written word without it. This fueled my perspective that perhaps a more personal style is actually better as it shows a greater length of detail and can also give us an insight into the thought process of the author. As an added bonus personal or more informal writing tends to be more engaging and exciting to read.

9/9

Today we actually answered the question what Qualitative research actually is. We broke into groups to discuss what exactly qualitative research was. We had a whole checklist and came to these conclusions and thoughts about what was on the list and why it was there. - Trying to avoid your preconceptions: be careful not to see what you expect to see or at least admit you know that you are looking through a specific lens - Entry and access: better to be accepted in and gain a fluid entrance rather than trying to force your way in - Observation- cant solely observe otherwise you will miss things -Participation- cant overly interact or you will miss some of the big picture or choose one and admit that you missed something as a result -"thick description"- be as descriptive as possible let readers make their own decision. Pick and choose - Interviewing- Be as true as possible also be willing to listen - interpretation- Our difference reviewing. Our own experience will shape what we see or report -Relationships- It part of our lens. Have to build them to a degree when we get to our field study and the relationships we form will color or opinions -The complexity and texture- people are complex we will never learn everything there is to learn -Stories and representing those stories- the better listener the better and more relevant the story -context- Gives us a frame of reference -culture- shared beliefs, values, customes, etc) -Words- How should you conduct the in review? Differences on the phone or email perhaps easier for them to lie. As interviewer words can be leading and alter how they respond. Can also alter how people read it and the conclusions they draw. Know when to bring words up. Have to put spoken words into context -verification: how do you show? Multiple accounts, clarifying, consistency, perhaps verify the meaning

behind it. Can mean many things in many contexts what we are after is that verification is important, in research how does it play out?

9/11 First I want to discuss the professors excellent idea about actually applying Qualitative research methods to the local schools. I agree with him completely that we do a lot of talking in education classes at Bucknell and make very little progress in the way of changing the problems we point out. I think it would be an excellent plan to apply what we are learning in this class and take it out into the real world to try and help make things better. I understand why some of our class mates have some reservations but I love the idea of making it a culminating experience and would love to be involved in making it one if I could. Alternatively if we wanted to try and make it work for this class I suppose we could change the final set of projects to actual field work but thats just my suggestion. The main meat of todays class discussion was continuing to discuss our first field practice as well as discussing our second field practice. We discussed the first one in small groups first. Throughout the course of the first field work discussion we pointed out multiple things including how awkward some people felt observing people for large amounts of time. While I didnt personally have a problem with this my observation spot was terrible, in part due to my group wanting to have the best observation that we could, as Im pretty sure the people we were observing noticed me watching them or at least one of them did. When doing observations in the future I think I would like to have more time to scout and plan out the location to make sure that I was as inconspicuous as possible so that I could observe the best as possible as I know you can learn some really great things just from looking like you belong in a scenario as I have unintentionally overheard several very private conversations just because people werent paying attention and I felt to awkward to move The other major issue we brought up was that this kind

of study was very ambiguous and left you to make a lot of potential assumptions about the person you were viewing. The second observation we talked about how it is hard to know if we are really getting the truth out of the people we are interviewing and how we know this. Personally the person I interviewed this time was a very good and close friend whom I have interviewed on assignments that asked similar questions before. Outside of listening for class I knew some of the details that I formally asked about and thus I am fairly certain she was telling the truth. That said I can understand why as a whole it is actually difficult to fully know when people are telling the truth and that is why it is important to write down everything that people say and take note of how they look and sound when they deliver what they are saying as it may give improved insight as to what they are truly thinking. This was less ambiguous though as you are able to follow up with what you are asking to clarify your position and clear up a lot of that ambiguity.