New transcription routines

I have been preparing transcripts from virtual class recordings and interactive/co-generative interviews for my dissertation project.  As I have done in the past with other projects, I am creating verbatim transcripts in a standardized format to “aid the handling, comparison, and sharing of language data” (Lapadat & Lindsay, 1999, p. 70). 

My primary tool for transcription, is InqScribe software, which has many features that I have come to rely on, especially the control for playback speed and the embedded timecodes that enable me to jump to specific locations in my audio files. However, one aspect I do not like about InqScribe is its output. I must copy and paste the raw transcript into a Word document, where I bold, italicize, and perform other formatting functions as needed.

My journey down the transcription road (more like grueling death march) happened to coincide with my recent venture into the case study literature.  For this reason, I closely attended to what the case study methodologists had to say about interviewing and transcribing, and I wondered if my readings would influence my process of data collection and handling.  In fact, they have, and I have added a few "new routines" to my process. 

Gisting

Somewhere along the way, I heard about this practice of capturing the "gist" of researcher-participant exchanges  -- maybe in ethnography? I can't remember. 

Nevertheless, to gist an interview or conversation, the researcher writes down everything that he or she can recall as soon as possible following the encounter. 

Gisting is essentially a good habit of all fieldwork. We were taught in intro to qualitative research to immediately review notes and reflect in writing after the fact. Sadly, it is not a habit I ever developed. Typically, when I am in the field, I am running hither and yon, usually because I have overscheduled the day and am late to the next engagement. As qualitative researchers, this may be our most debilitating mistake in the interview process. I realize this now.

In the short passage on interviewing techniques in The Art of Case Study Research, Stake says that the single most important thing the case researcher can do is "insist on ample time and space immediately following the interview to prepare the facsimile and interpretive commentary" (p. 66). In fact, Stake argues persuasively against any transcription, saying the "facsimile" is all anyone really wants to see. Participants are likely to be put off by the length of a typical transcript and "the inelegance of their own sentences" (p. 66). 

Briefly, Stake's interview tips are:

1. rather than tape record or write furious notes, listen and make a few notes
2. ask for clarification
3. after the interview (within a few hours) reconstruct the account in your own words
4. submit the facsimile to the participant for accuracy and stylistic improvement

I think I have the first two steps down pat, but I am not prepared to give up recording. I am a fairly decent listener and always take a few notes, and my notes work like markers for later navigation through the recording. On the downside of that, I have never mastered the art of discreetly noting the passage of time or approximate minutes transpired during an interview. (It seems rude to glance at my cell phone or clock during the interview. I don't want to wrongly cue the speaker that we are out of time.)

Insofar as reconstructing the account immediately after the interview (Step 3), this is something I would like to do better. What I have been doing based on Stake's advice is to deliberately stop after every 10 or so minutes of transcription and write and reflect on key ideas, impressions, and insights that accumulated in my brain. This has become my version of gisting the interview, and I'm very pleased with the results! When I finally finish transcribing -- and, unfortunately, this does drag out the transcription process even more so than ever -- I have a nice narrative summary of the interview with my interpretive commentary woven throughout. I insert timestamps as critical reference markers, should I or a participant want to go into the original transcript to read the exact words. 

Maintaining trustworthiness

I am starting to include the gist of the interview with the verbatim transcript when I submit it to the interviewee as part of my new member checking routine. So far, I have received one reaction from an interviewee, and it was wholly positive.  Stake says to expect this. Member checking is a necessary step, even when participants don't respond. If the researcher is anxious his or her facts or interpretations are off-base, it is up to the researcher to probe more deeply.

Member checks are one of several strategies identified by Yamagata-Lynch (2010) for maintaining trustworthiness in activity theoretical studies (the method of my dissertation). Other strategies include prolonged engagement, persistent observation, and triangulation. I feel relatively confident about upholding these standards during my study, but I have never purposefully applied member checks before. This is new territory for me.

While Yin does not use the term "member check," he says a major procedure in doing a case study is inviting participants and informants to view drafts of the report. Yin fixates on "corroboration" and "validity" as the main reason for member checks. He says participants may disagree with interpretation but should validate facts of the case. The case study is not complete until the researcher resolves these disagreements. 

I would argue the purpose is to check interpretations for "coherence," per Piantanida and Garman (2009). Yin allows for this possibility, too. In cases where "validity" or "objective truth" may not be the point, the process of member checking is helpful for identifying different participant perspectives, which will be portrayed in the final case study report. And, Yin says, the researcher ultimately has the "discretionary option" and does not have to accommodate participants' reinterpretations (Yin, Ch. 6, "Reviewing the Draft Case Study: A Validating Procedure," para 3).

As with gisting, member checking adds time. Also, Yin advises, participant-reviewers may use the opportunity to open a fresh line of dialogue about the study. The researcher must plan ahead and budget time accordingly.

I have only started to do member checks, but to expedite the process, I am finding the Evernote notetaking app to be especially useful.

It was not my plan initially to use Evernote so deliberately in my data collection process. In January, during my very first interview with a teacher-learner, my digital audio recorder was making me nervous, indicating it was low on both memory and battery life. I didn't have a back-up recording device -- or so I thought! I remembered I could use the built--in recording feature of Evernote. I opened my iPad, opened Evernote, created a note using the participant's pseudonym as a title, and clicked on the Record Audio button in the top menu. With tablet devices becoming almost ever-present in daily life, it was easy to place the iPad unobtrusively on the table between me and the interviewee while we talked. It may even have been less distracting than the microrecorder.

Later, when I prepared to send the transcript with gisting to the participant, it occurred to me that I could use the Share tool in Evernote and the original audio file would embed in an email. So, I copied and pasted the gist and the transcript from Word into the Evernote note with audio and sent it. 

I am hopeful that the member checking routine will enrich my study. According to Yin, "Often, the opportunity to review the draft also produces further evidence, as the informants and participants may remember new materials that they had forgotten during the initial data collection period" (Yin, Ch. 6, "Reviewing the Draft Case Study: A Validating Procedure," para 2).

In the event this does not happen (and it may not), I still wonder if this could not serve as the basic premise of eventual follow-up interviews, asking participants to react to the short gist of their first interview (as opposed to, "What did you think of the transcript?")? 

Group update

Last week our group workshopped Brian's Chapter 3. I learned a lot from reading Brian's work and got some ideas about interviewing as well as a lead on another possible resource, ‪Learning From Strangers: The Art and Method of Qualitative Interview Studies by Weiss. The group also selected a reading for the week of  Feb. 24, Edwards (1998). We plan to discuss the reading and workshop some of Nalani's early coding efforts from a pilot study she conducted.

References

Lapadat, J. C., & Lindsay, A. C. (1999). Transcription in research and practice: From standardization of technique to interpretive positionings. Qualitative Inquiry, 5(1), 64 –86. doi:10.1177/107780049900500104

Piantanida, M., & Garman, N. B. (2009). The qualitative dissertation: A guide for students and faculty (2nd ed., Kindle version.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Stake, R. E. (1995). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Yamagata-Lynch, L. C. (2010). Activity systems analysis methods: Understanding complex learning environments. New York: Springer.

Yin, R. K. (2008). Case study research: Design and methods (4th ed., Kindle version.). Los Angeles: SAGE.

New transcription routines

Boote & Beile (2005) take-aways

I am preparing a conference proposal based on a historical review of the literature I wrote last semester for one of my comprehensive exam questions, a question I had proposed in collaboration with my committee. I wanted to trace the origins of the conceptual construct known as TPACK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge) because I thought it would be a major aspect of my dissertation frameworks.

Conducting the TPACK literature review taught me a lot -- mainly that I did not want to focus on TPACK! I decided that the current state of teacher development as it relates to the new literacies is less a problem framed by cognition (as in, developing TPACK) and more a problem with dispositions and mindsets toward new digital technologies. In other words, when teaching about and through 21st century technologies, we fail to acknowledge the fear and sense of disequilibrium that gives rise to the initial resistance among even the most gung-ho learners.

Still. I am pretty happy with the final outcome of the review. I enjoyed writing it and don't want my efforts to go to waste. I see value in the TPACK construct in that it provides a common language for researchers and teacher educators, and I found interesting intersections in the literature between the TPACK and new literacies discourse communities. So, I am going to submit my review of the TPACK literature to this year's Literacy Research Association conference in hopes of striking a chord with the niche group of new literacies teacher educators who annually attend.

Before doing so, I would not object if someone gave my TPACK review the once-over with the evaluation framework Boote and Beile (2005) devised for their analysis of doctoral literature reviews in education.

Boote and Beile pull no punches in their harsh assessment of the state of the literature review, and I wonder how my TPACK document would hold up to their standards, particularly the methodology criteria. To my knowledge, I did not describe the advantages and disadvantages of primary methodologies used in the field of teacher education and instructional technology, except to note the preponderance of quantitative studies and their ineffectiveness in "measuring" change in the affective domain. And that is teetering on the edge of the pitfall known as the "negative logic-of-justification" (Piantanida & Garman, 2009, Ch. 11, "Preparing to construct a logic-of-justification," para 4).

Take-away: I need to maintain a steady focus on the "pockets of discourse" where scholars are connecting on particular qualitative approaches (i.e. fruitful connections between Cultural-Historical Activity Theory and the New Literacies perspective).

Bridging, not filling, gaps
Approaching the literature review is an exercise in making connections as much as the actual writing of the review itself. Before I began the process of "immersion in literature" (Piantanida & Garman, 2009), I had already oriented to my topic of interest based on a combination of worldview and practical and professional experience. Boote and Beile (2005), Kilbourn (2006), and Piantanida and Garman all argue this point.

from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Kilbourn, for instance, says we don't so much "find" topics as we "construct" or "develop" them. He says, "Problems are usually constructed out of a complex interplay among one's own thinking about an issue, one's own experience, and one's understanding of the research literature" (p. 539).

What we identify as a worthwhile problem to pursue is partly determined by our own thinking, experience, and reading of the literature. It is highly subjective.

And Piantanida and Garman explain, "...[P]atterns of meaning are not embedded in the literature per se, but are forged in relation to the nagging issues that are pushing and prodding one toward a picture of one's study" (Ch. 10, "Developing a Mindset for Reviewing Literature," para 1). Moreover, the patterns and connections help clarify "how one's ideas fit into an evolving discourse about the topic" (para 4).

A good lit review is not just a summary of research; it is the foundation upon which the researcher puts forth his or her unique perspective.

However, in their assessment of 12 dissertations from three state-funded institutions, Boote and Beile found evidence to suggest that, for many doctoral students and their advisers, the literature review is a "hollow exercise" (p. 9). The review is treated as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. We engage with the literature only long enough to find "the gap" that will justify our own study. Piantanida and Garman would call it just more academic folklore, a "misinterpretation of the expectation that the dissertation be an original piece of research" (Ch. 10, "Developing a Mindset for Reviewing Literature," para 3).

This misrepresentation is alive and well among my classmates and colleagues. Where do we get the idea that this is the purpose of the review? I certainly believed it, and I remember feeling envious when friends breathlessly delivered the news that they had finally "found a gap" in the literature for their dissertations. How many of us in our own reviews of the literature have skipped the discourse altogether, impatiently scrolling (or turning) the pages until we could rest our eyes on the all-important "findings" and "recommendations" sections of this-or-that study? We test the waters, rather than immerse ourselves in the discourse.

Take-away: Stop looking for gaps and look for opportunities to contribute to the ongoing deliberations on a topic within my field. My study should not propose to fill a gap; it should make connections across and between gaps.

"Crafting discursive text"
Piatanida and Garman describe the period of reading the literature as a time marked by confusion and feelings of incompetence. The incredible "Henny Penny" anecdote from Chapter 8 again comes to mind and should be required reading for all who are about to embark on the lit review journey.

Piantanida and Garman advise, "It is important to give oneself time to enter into the discourses, to read without necessarily understanding, and finally to read with enough understanding to begin crafting discursive text for the proposal" (Ch. 10, "Developing a Mindset for Reviewing the Literature, para 1).

By way of a somewhat tedious lawnmower repair metaphor, Kilbourn makes a similar point. He explains that the literature review is the route to writing the all-important problem statement (or Piantanida and Garman's "statement of intent"). Kilbourn says, "An educational problem gets translated into a research problem (1) when it is couched in an argument (an argument, not merely an assertion) that illustrates its educational significance and (2) when it explicitly refers to existing research" (p. 541).

The literature review, then, is integral to the study, not merely "tacked on," but interwoven in the context, motivation, and significance (Kilbourn, 2006). Kilbourn writes, "Articulating the problem in the proposal is one of the more difficult stages of a dissertation, one of the sweaty inclines" (p. 539).

from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I think the TPACK review did this for me. It pointed me to the less-understood phenomenon of teacher identity in relation to classroom technology integration. It goaded me to formulate a clear and (I hope) convincing rationale for the focus of my research.

So, contrary to popular belief, the literature review should not be put off until after the problem and methods are defined, nor should it be set aside as a "static artifact" upon completion (Boote & Beile, 2005, p. 11). This last bit of advice from Boote and Beile gave me pause because I really have not looked at my literature since submitting my proposal almost two months ago.

Take-away: Treat my dissertation literature review as a living, breathing document and stay engaged with the literature throughout the dissertation process.

References:

Boote, D. N., & Beile, P. (2005). Scholars before researchers: On the centrality of the dissertation literature review in research preparation. Educational Researcher, 34(6), 3–15. doi:10.3102/0013189X034006003

Kilbourn, B. (2006). The qualitative doctoral dissertation proposal. The Teachers College Record, 108(4), 529–576.

Piantanida, M., & Garman, N. B. (2009). The qualitative dissertation: A guide for students and faculty (2nd ed., Kindle version.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Boote & Beile (2005) take-aways

Perspicacity or paint-by-numbers?

Good research is not about good methods as much as it is about good thinking. (Stake, 1995, p. 19)

Writing is thinking on paper. -- William Zinnser

Perspicacity 1936

For a Tuesday night class, I was asked to lead discussion on a reading selection about case study research in the field of literacy.

This was a prime opportunity, as I am in the middle of a self-directed, crash course on case study methodology for my own dissertation. Remembering the advice of a former university instructor who said that presenting a formal, scholarly talk on a subject is good preparation for the eventual task of academic writing, I used this occasion to sort out my nascent understandings of the case study literature, namely the works of two leading methodologists, Stake (1995) and Yin (2008).

First, to catch everyone up: Although I already have written and defended a dissertation proposal, I feel my research design, which includes case study, is flimsy. I proposed a project using Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and activity systems analysis within a case study, but I am not at all versed in case study method. In my proposal I devoted my time to a thorough treatment of CHAT, which is a substantive theoretical and analytical frameworks that does not provide a clear logic of design. Thus, in the literature, you will encounter CHAT theorists who specialize in other methods, such as design-based research, ethnography, and case study.

So, in consultation with my professors, I decided that part of my work this semester -- even as I am actively collecting data and beginning initial analysis -- would be to take a closer look at the case study tradition and develop an appropriate "logic-of-justification" (Piantanida & Garman, 2009) for its use in my study.

I began the presentation on Tuesday evening with the above quote from Stake and an image from Rene Magritte, whose artwork Stake references both on the cover and in Chapter 6 of his 1995 book, The Art of Case Study Research.

I loved Chapter 6 of this book. Stake demonstrates how epistemology is expressed through multiple overlapping and intertwined researcher identities: teacher, participant observer, interviewer, reader, storyteller, advocate, artist, counselor, evaluator, consultant. The researcher is all of these, but his or her "style" determines the emphasis given each role.

In a section titled "Case Researcher as Interpreter," Stake argues that "research is not just the domain of scientists, it is the domain of craftspersons and artists as well, all who would study and interpret" (p. 97). He connects case study to the Surrealist Magritte, who juxtaposed everyday images to make assertions about the world and humanity. "Magritte worked his white clouds against luminous blue sky again and again, drawing attention to ourselves as creators of meaning -- and to the artist as our agent, helping us toward new realizations" (p. 98).

I enjoyed Stake's discussion about "researcher as interpreter" and decided to include a bit of that in my presentation on Tuesday. I selected Magritte's Perspiracity as a discussion starter. I had to look up this word, which means "acute mental vision and discernment." I thought this connected nicely with Piantanida and Garman's discussion around the concept of phronesis, the wisdom and "theoretic perspective" that guides the researcher "toward a form of representation that can convey the complexity of the phenomenon clearly and persuasively" (Ch. 13, Warranting a Thesis, para 3). Stake simply called it "good thinking."

[Confession: As I browsed thumbnails of Magritte's art on the Internet, my initial reaction to the image of the stiff man in a suit painting a bird while studying what appears to be a common chicken egg was, "How sad, uninspired, and predictable." Maybe Magritte's title is a tongue-in-cheek joke? Still. Some scholars in the UK, at least, also made the Perspicacity and phronesis connection, as evidenced by the book cover to the right, shared with me by a classmate just this morning! Wild, huh?]

For the presentation on case study, I wanted to do something more than just deliver a tired, bullet-pointed explication of methodological conventions. So, I delivered a tired, bullet-pointed explication of methodological conventions -- with a twist. I tried framing the presentation (embedded below) as my personal process of constructing a logic-of-justification.

One idea, in particular, that I wanted to put out there is the novice researcher's struggle to break out on his or her own while self-consciously clinging to "prescriptive formulas" (Piantanida & Garman). This theme came out in full at the end of the presentation, during Q&A time, when I shared some of my own questions:

• Which perspective on case study (Stake, Yin, others???) is a good epistemological fit for my project? Do I need to align with one perspective? By paragraph three of his introduction, Yin already sounds more objectivist than Stake, using terms like "validity" and "chain of evidence." Also, in answer to the question, "How does one know to use case study?" Yin writes, "There's no formula, but your choice depends in large part on your research question(s)." This is opposite of an interpretivist mindset that would say the researcher's proclivities and epistemology determine the method/approach.
•  Where does the rich, narrative description (experiential text) of case study fit into a CHAT dissertation? As a stand-alone chapter?

I cannot help it. The novice in me craves scaffolds and step-by-step guidelines, which imposes a significant (productive?) tension vis-a-vis my desire to say and do something innovative and original. I am gripped by these competing mindsets (not to mention what a ticking clock and dwindling bank account are doing to my willingness to invest an "extra year" in the name of "scholarly integrity and perseverance.")

My project resides on a continuum, somewhere between masterpiece and paint-by-numbers.

Section Four of The Qualitative Dissertation portrays six students' maneuverings along this same continuum. Interestingly, of the six interpretive exemplars, I most related to the  journeys of Jean and Joan, who each produced highly conceptualized, arts-based inquiries. While I am not doing anything so artsy (I am doing one of the more hum-drum qualitative genres out there!), I appreciated their struggles "to come to grips with the issue of genre" in the midst of doing their studies.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1T9_KtfS6XvpnpLQtHRkv6TqwS8g7PCi3o8GlB8AFxgA/edit?usp=sharing

References

Piantanida, M., & Garman, N. B. (2009). The qualitative dissertation: A guide for students and faculty (2nd ed., Kindle version). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Stake, R. E. (1995). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Yin, R. K. (2008). Case study research: Design and methods (4th ed., Kindle version). Los Angeles: SAGE.

Perspicacity or paint-by-numbers?

659 project update, week of Feb. 4

I have been working on two aspects of my project over the last two weeks: conducting in-depth, unstructured interviews with literacy teachers and exploring the case study literature.

Interviews
Last night I completed another interactive interview/dialogue with a teacher from the reading specialist cohort that is the subject of my study. As I mentioned in my previous post, I have not been systematically reflecting on these unstructured interviews as they have been happening (four in the last two weeks, two face-to-face and two using Skype). I am at a point now where I am beginning to see connections and patterns, and, it's crucial I start documenting.

There are three levels of documentation I need to make: connections and patterns I am noticing across the content of the conversations themselves, ideas on how to improve the course experience for future reading specialist students (many of which can be implemented now, with the new cohort that just started the program), and my experiences with online interviewing. Unfortunately, all of my energy and attention seems bound up in ensuring a good online interview experience and quality recording. The participants have been positive and cooperative, but I am troubleshooting audio problems and getting poor sound quality, which is going to impinge on my transcription process.

In one failed interview attempt last week (this one using Collaborate -- the participant's preferred mode), the participant finally said she would prefer a face-to-face interview. So, I am now making plans to travel to her campus in a rural county, one hour northeast of Knoxville. (The technical difficulties with Collaborate had to do with a conflict between a Mac OS system update and Java, causing Collaborate not to launch properly. This conflict has been resolved.)

The case study literature
I have gathered texts by Yin and Stake as well as some miscellaneous articles and chapters on case study. I will be supplementing these with readings from Cresswell's Five Approaches. I began with Stake's The Art of Case Study Research, as this was recommended by one of my committee members. At some point before next week, I would like to balance out readings from Stake with some selected chapters from Yin's 4th Ed. of Case Study Research because this came highly recommended by another committee member.

My goal for the end of next week is to be able to say with some measure of confidence which of the two approaches -- Stake's or Yin's -- is the best one for an activity systems analysis, which is my ultimate purpose. In other words, I would like to build a logic-of-justification for a perspective on case study that aligns with my CHAT study. I know it's a backwards approach....

My initial impressions of Stake included some apprehension about his background in program evaluation, a perspective I thought would be ill-suited for the kind of work I do. I am encouraged, however, by his preference for instrumental case study work organized around issues, not  individuals per se. This aligns nicely with the tradition of case study within the literacy field, which has mostly been of the instrumental sort, according to Barone's (2011) historical review.

References

Barone, D. M. (2011). Case study research. In N. K. Duke & M. H. Mallette (Eds.), Literacy Research Methodologies (2nd ed., pp. 7–27). New York: The Guilford Press.

Stake, R. E. (1995). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Yin, R. K. (2008). Case study research: Design and methods (4th ed.). Los Angeles: SAGE.

659 project update, week of Feb. 4

Living the stage of "living with the study"

To reflect on the ideas in the final chapters of The Qualitative Dissertation is somewhat difficult for me in a public venue such as this; although, I harbor no illusions that even a handful of people look at this blog.

I am in the stage of "living with the study," and to speak with candor about this stage partly entails sharing my frustration and regret, which could reflect poorly on those directly affected by my project and on my committee members who are helping me steer it.

I never approached the formation of a dissertation committee with any sense of anxiety or dread. I thought I knew which individuals were best suited for the job. I held my prospective committee members in high personal and professional regard and felt reasonably confident in our past working relationships. I never made broad assumptions about their "wealth of experience and wisdom." I just personally liked these people!

I was naive. I may have inadvertently placed together people who possess different mindsets and stances regarding the dissertation process. For instance, I asked one faculty member to serve on my committee for the simple fact that she has mentored me since my days as a master's student. In hindsight, I may not have sufficiently weighed the consequences of the fact that she is a postpositivist researcher with little experience in qualitative inquiry. 

Then, I invited another individual onto my committee who I knew would hold me accountable for methodological rigor. Meanwhile, the other two committee members possess practical, on-the-ground expertise directly related to my research context and participants.
 
I now feel the tug between both ends of a spectrum: what is methodologically "right" and sound on the one hand, versus what is practical and do-able, on the other. And my greatest fear is ending up a cautionary tale for the next crop of doc students in my program.

Storyboarding

Reflecting
The messy two-part phase of "living with the study" is punctuated by an "aha moment" or "conceptual leap." The second half of this phase is spent crafting the experiential, discursive, and theoretic text that warrants the new-found thesis. This stage requires "systematic rigor," not random jottings of notes and reflections. 

This is my pitfall. For better or worse, I jumped into a context without a concrete plan -- the exact form of "unstructured immersion" that Piantanida and Garman warn against. My own committee was split on this move. Some members suggested I use my experience in the fall 2012 semester as an exploratory or pilot study, but my committee chair basically said, "Why wait? This experience may never come again."

"Vigilance" in the form of daily or weekly reflection is one way to avoid the pitfalls of unstructured immersion. I think I did some aspects of this pretty well during fall 2012, when the actual phenomenon under investigation was at its peak of activity. I wrote weekly field notes, observations, and reflections and labeled and coded them according to their content, using the system described by Laurel Richardson (1994):

• observation notes (ON)-concrete, detailed, fairly accurate renditions of what you see, hear, feel, taste, and so on
• methodological notes (MN)-messages to oneself about how to collect data -- who to talk to , when to phone, etc. A "process diary" of your work
• theoretical notes (TN)-hunches, hypotheses, connections, critiques of what is being observed.  Opening up your field note text to interpretation and a "critical epistemological stance." (I view these as akin to analytical memos.)
• personal notes (PN)-feeling statements about the research, doubts, anxieties.  No censoring.  A method of "inquiry into the self"

A conceptual leap

I think this notetaking schema closely parallels Piantanida and Garman's three forms of reflection (recollective, introspective, and conceptual).

My weekly contact with the study participants has since ended, and, consequently, my process of reflection has stalled. This is especially worrisome to me, as now, more than ever, I must guard against losing sight of my study. I have entered into a stage of conducting intense one-on-one dialogues with participants, and I need to be more disciplined about reflecting on this process as it happens.

Making the "conceptual leap"
I am a big believer in creative procrastination, cogitating on what I want to say before I take to saying it (writing it). Activities such as folding laundry or doing dishes (or soaking in a bubble bath) have often provided me the mental space in which "elusive images emerge." The key is having the resources and materials near at hand so you can jot down or, in some cases, draw, diagram, or dictate your ideas.

Although I have worked hard to maintain a paperless work ethic over the last year and a half, the rawest form of my conceptual "leaping" tends to happen on yellow legal pad paper and sticky notes. I am still clinging to a blue sticky note that I scrawled last semester when I was simultaneously collecting texts, writing comps, and co-teaching a course pilot. The contents of that note went through multiple iterations and drafts, ultimately becoming the conceptual spine of my dissertation proposal.

Owning the study
After reading this section of Chapter 13, I believe I need to revisit the language of my proposal and revise my "claims to truth." I enjoyed reading Exemplar 13.2 and the author's multifaceted stone metaphor (reminiscent of Richardson's crystal metaphor). Instead of informing or helping my readers know how teachers learn technology, I am sharing my understanding of how a particular group of teachers learned technology, my unique theoretic perspective.

In the field of literacy studies, particularly New Literacy studies, the multiple realities perspective (Labbo & Reinking, 1999) is often referenced in qualitative studies. It is a good frame from which literacy researchers can exert their "authorial right," as Piantanida and Garman put it. Rather than chasing after grand truths, the multiple realities perspective “allows us to seek research-to-practice connections that are specific to particular instructional realities, that is, to focus on research findings that might be applied more confidently to particular situations rather than to seek principles so general as to be relatively meaningless in any particular context”  (p. 486).

In my proposal, I used the multiple realities lens to complement my substantive frameworks, and it is my intention to use it as an anchor and guide for my observations and interpretations of technology in practice. The multiple realities appropriately situates the topic of technology inside the bigger picture: technology as an extension of literacy and literacy as an extension of selfhood, identity.

Keeping my eyes on the prize (and dog poop)
So, this morning I am leaving the house with the kids, mad at myself because I hadn't finished this blog post, which I really wanted to have "out of the way" so I could enjoy chaperoning my son's class trip, piano class, and other "acts of domesticity."

Halfway to the car, my daughter stops in our backyard, looks up, points, and says, "Look, Mommy, a crescent moon!"

And I reply absentmindedly, "Yeah...watch out for dog poop."

If I have learned anything from reading The Qualitative Dissertation: A Guide for Students and Faculty it's the importance of deliberation as a means of attaining phronesis, "a valuing of wisdom that can guide action within the complexities of unfolding experience." The concept of deliberation resurfaces in chapters 13 and 14 as the essential mindset, the essential form of self-understanding.

The deliberative stance enables the doctoral candidate to "build bridges," first in the actual writing of the dissertation, which seamlessly connects lived experience to theoretic interpretation, and, later, in professional life. "Ideally, graduates who have developed a capacity for deliberation are better able to build bridges between the world of practice and the world of research."

Clearly, my deliberative stance needs work. I should be able to enjoy the moon and a walk through the grass both.

Piantanida and Garman describe the exemplary dissertation as "a fully developed conceptual picture that flows seamlessly from concrete, lived experience to a significant theoretic 'So what?'" In the coming months, I will aspire to write with "exquisite narrative sensibility," but I imagine I will have my moments (much like this morning) when all I will care about and hope for is meeting some "minimum threshold of acceptability."

References

Labbo, L. D., & Reinking, D. (1999). Negotiating the multiple realities of technology in literacy research and instruction. Reading Research Quarterly, 34(4), 478–492. doi:10.1598/RRQ.34.4.5

Piantanida, M., & Garman, N. B. (2009). The qualitative dissertation: A guide for students and faculty (Second Edition, Kindle edition.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Richardson, L. (1994). Writing: A method of inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research (pp. 516–529). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Living the stage of "living with the study"