Reading notes for Oct. 27

Miscellaneous thoughts on Markham

This past summer in EP 604, we learned that most any digital tool you can think of can be used in the research process, when accompanied with ample researcher reflexivity. Markham's chapter on "Internet Communication as a Tool for Qualitative Research" drives this point home again and again as she explores different frameworks and conceptualizations of the Internet and their implications for qualitative research.

Markham is generally very consistent in framing each of her segments in terms of constraints and affordances that, when properly understood and appreciated, "can help researchers make wise choices as they investigate potentially unfamiliar research environments..." (p. 97). I did find it strange that her discussion of the Internet's time-bending capabilities was markedly positive with no mention of drawbacks. I agree that the "chrono-malleable Internet" has numerous "pragmatic advantages," as described on pages 103-104. But what is lost when participants can rehearse, edit, and "pause" conversations at will? I will probably be scolded for privileging face-to-face, but I do like the spontaneity and immediacy of that kind of exchange.

Another big take-away for me regarding EP 604 was what I perceived as a loud and clear mandate for digital literacies in qualitative research.  Markham picks this up on p. 112.  The 21st-century surge of digital technology and the Internet influences our mundane, daily practices, but it also transforms the very core of what it means to be a "good" researcher.

The same impact is being felt in education.  In my field, there are those similar to Markham who call for a heightened awareness of the implications of digital tools for teaching and learning. Lankshear & Knoble, for instance, champion digital literacies in educational contexts. They advocate a “dialectical” approach, which brings together “elements of the conventional and new that are often in tension within established educational set-ups" (p. 255). Educators gain “insider” sensibilities through hands-on exploration of new technologies so as to better envision and develop pedagogies that will take students “from where they are to where we believe it is good for them educationally to go” (p. 246).

Markham makes a parallel statement in her chapter: "If researchers cannot adjust to the particular features and capacities of Internet technologies, they may miss the opportunity to understand these phenomena as they operate in context" (p. 112). 

Markham's comments on issues of "control" were also fascinating, and somehow got me thinking of CA. We may have already discussed this a bit in class already, but I cannot recall what, if anything, the CA community has to say about computer-mediated communication (CMC)? I am hard pressed to remember anything ten Have wrote on the subject. After all, can something computer-mediated be considered "naturally occurring"? (Lamerichs & te Molder would say "yes" -- p. 452.) 

But CMC is not really conversation, is it? There is the increasing occurrence of synchronous video conferencing, but CMC is generally not spoken. It's mostly written.  Participants get to contextualize their own words with emoticons, punctuation, modification of voice, and asterisks (such as "Jennifer" did in Markham's example on pp. 106-107). These functions are usually taken up by the conversation analyst during transcription, but within CMC, the participant essentially gets to generate his or her own portion of the  "transcript" for the researcher.

Talk about a shift in control! 

"Shift Happens"

A few years ago an instructional technologist in Colorado created a simple PowerPoint video to inform his school's faculty about the impact of digital tools and globalization on education.  Somehow, it made its way onto the Internet and became an international phenomenon in a matter of weeks, making its creator, Carl Fisch, an IT "rock star" of sorts.

Here in Knox County, Tennessee, school board members circulated the video among their constituents, and it eventually was required viewing during a Knox County teacher inservice program. Even the minister at the church I attend showed it during a Sunday school discussion on postmodernism and Christianity. 

The video was titled Shift Happens, and the fact it went viral with more than five million views on YouTube sort of proves its own point.

Markham talks about "shift" when she suggests that researchers change their view of the Internet as a medium for "information transmission" to one of "meaning-making" (p. 98).  All the readings this week build on this theme, speaking variously of shifts from the cognitive to the constructivist (Markham), from the cognitive to the discursive (Lamerichs & te Molder, 2003), and from "cognitive aspects" to "discursive construction" (Horne & Wiggins, 2009, p. 171).

Variability, instability, a general feeling of impermanence and rupture has characterized the last century even before the arrival of the Internet and CMC. You can always "count on" variability! I am drawn to qualitative research in general -- and the discourse analysis tradition, specifically -- because of its acknowledgement of this aspect of modern life. One of the most appealing aspects of DA is its respect for the element of variability, which undeniably pervades life despite researchers' best attempts at "control." 

A priori frameworks and preconceived standards and expectations of competence or "norms" are consistently challenged in a variety of social science research contexts, such as counseling and sociology and, of course, education, where the industrial-era factory model has proven more than inadequate at addressing the individual and the idiosyncratic. Qualitative research allows me to muck around with the contradictions rather than sweep them aside. And CMC, when viewed with the "discursive psychological perspective" as advocated by Lamerichs & te Molder, lays this all bare. 

CMC is not a neutral medium for simply conveying fixed knowledge inside one's mind; it is a platform for visibly and transparently organizing and working out new thinking and new ideas -- I'm thinking now of my previous post about "signs" and Gunther Kress' "epistemological commitments." Online discussions and other CMC provide a virtual worktable for individuals and groups to lay out their thinking.  It reminds me of the math teacher urging the student to "show your work," which always seemed like a pain for some students who could instantly figure the right answer in their heads. But for other learners, showing one's work meant the possibility of illustrating a new way to arrive at the same answer or, at the very least, receiving partial credit for demonstrating mastery of certain steps in the right direction.

 As a language arts person, it seems odd to me at this very moment to use an example from mathematics instruction to illustrate the value of variability and individuality in learning. Hmm. 

Still, language arts teachers pay lip service about the merits of discussion and distributed knowledge-making, but most classroom research in this area reveals that face-to-face discussion is seldom done, much less CMC.  Well-intentioned teachers, who don't mind relinquishing control of the knowledge flow, face at least two challenges.  First, classroom discussion requires a huge time investment. Second, the process and outcomes are not always easy to document (read: measure and assess).

And this is where CMC comes in service both to teachers and researchers. Twenty-first century information and communication technologies can do a lot to mitigate the challenges of distributed knowledge building. Blogs, wikis, and online networks permit individuals to start, extend, and continue discussions beyond the ordinary limits of time and space, such as was done in the nutrition class in the Lester & Paulus article.  They allow the shared cognitive workspace to be plainly visible and accessible on a 24/7 basis. 

Reading notes for Oct. 27