Pieces of a Man Think it. Do it. Be it. Embellish.

67.68.69.70.71.72.73.74.75.76 77.78.79.80.81.82.83.84.85.86 87.88.89.90.91.92.93.94.95.96 97.98.99.00.01.02.03.04.05.06 07.08.09.10

... April Fool's Day! Feeling a bit nauseous this morning, not because my 90 days are up but probably because of last night's takeout. As I lay in bed groaning earlier I was pondering whether to now push on for completion in the next 10 days to hit that 100 or whether I might now relax a bit and polish away at it in a more organic and sane fashion and get it done when it's done.

For the last three months I wouldn't have considered pausing at all for fear that if I turned the engine off I might not get it started again, but now it feels different. I've processed, coded and cross-referenced all the transcripts and now formulated an outline of the findings and discussion. All I need to do now is fill in the words, and it feels like a downhill stroll. Or maybe it's just the MSG talking and I will feel different after a rest.

Today Jo needs to see 'Into the Wild' before it goes back and I might try to watch it again. Sometimes a story comes along that just completely knocks you sideways and, for me, this was definitely one. Haunting.

Labels: 2010

... 3 to go. Everyone's gone down to Norfolk so I've reverted to assignment mode - dressing gown, stubble and takeouts. Woohoo! On Thursday I finally got to the end of all the interviews and now I'm nearly at the end of all the transcription - just one left, but it's with a subject who talked fast for a hour, barely pausing for breath, so that'll be about 3-4 hours typing. Might start that after this post, actually, since I've been at it for 12 hours already today and now feel too brain dead to do anything else.

Over the last few days it's become apparent that this bugger won't be finished on Wednesday, which was where my official countdown above was heading. The main reason for this has been the change of research methodology from Plan A - relatively familiar quantitative methodology - to Plan B, which is complex, new and unfamiliar qualitative analysis. The change of plan has been unfolding for weeks now, but it's only in the last week that I've grasped what this will really mean for the analysis and write up.

For a start, I now have about 80 pages of interview transcripts to read through and code. I'll be starting that tomorrow morning, but first I've had to spend today getting to grips with a new piece of software called Nvivo. Although I'd heard of it vaguely before, I didn't realise what it was for and I had no idea it was so darned impressive. It enables the coding and analysis of texts, audio and video, so in a day or two I'll able to slice and dice my interviews in no end of ways to discover patterns and discern meaning emerging from the data.

While I'm a bit disappointed that I won't hit that long-awaited deadline, I'm finding this process so interesting that I'm actually pretty relaxed about it. It's like arriving unexpectedly in a new country you never knew existed, so I don't mind adding an extra few days on my itinerary to explore. The strange thing is, though, had I not followed a hunch that a piece of software like this must exist and gone looking for it yesterday off my own bat, I would never have been any the wiser...

I've had three conversations with my supervisor around this new research direction and was basically guided to print off five copies of EACH transcript (i.e. 80 sets) and go through them repeatedly with different colours of highlighter pen as the primary means of analysis. Given what I know now, this would have been like boiling rice a grain at a time because no-one mentioned saucepans!

I just can't imagine why my supervisor never mentioned the software available to help with this. He's young and fairly switched on, not some doddery 80-year old professor. It's more likely it wasn't mentioned because they don't have the resources or the time to explain how to use it and don't know who else can. Whichever, it's pretty scary to know how close I came to wasting a good chunk of my life on techniques that probably disappeared in the 80s, and it's another sobering insight into what students sometimes get from us.

So, anyway, now I'm going to be working away on coding and analysis for most of the next few days before heading down to Norfolk. I'll still have next week to get some of the actual writing done. Final hand over at the end of Easter would be nice - almost exactly 100 days - but if not, at least all the effort seems worthwhile.

Labels: 2010

... 6 days to go. Suddenly into single figures now, so it's strange that I've not done anything all week. Jo's been typing up the transcripts, though, which has helped me no end, and I've got the last three leftover interviews today. From tomorrow it will then just be dissertation straight through to Easter, pausing only to go see Macclesfield v Cheltenham, strangely. My countdown will end on Wednesday. I doubt that I'll have a completely finished article on that day, but instead something that should just need some reviews and tweaks after Easter so that I can hand it in on the first day back in Sheffield. Then I will advance straight to the iPhone shop, pausing only to collect £200 - half for the iPhone, the rest for beer.

Labels: 2010

... 11 left. Pretty knackered. Just finished my week of study leave, although being in the office meant it was peppered with random meetings to keep things ticking over. I have 10 interviews to transcribe and since it's boring as hell, I'm in full displacement mode, especially on the holiday websites as the finishing line gets close. There are some nice Med flight deals from Stansted, but spring weather is a gamble. Florida is what everyone wants, but it's proving impossible to find a 2-week window and the summer is just too hot for our lot, so September is probably the earliest that could happen.

Labels: 2010

... 21 to go. Only three weeks but they'll be tough ones. I've just been transcribing the first two of my interviews. They were about 40 minutes each and the transcription took an hour for each, which isn't bad. I'm going with partial transcription of the key points and the dictation machine is a major timesaver. Once it's up and running you just need to press the right foot pedal to play the tape back, and after pausing it automatically rewinds and plays back the last few seconds before you stopped which makes it very natural and easy to continue the thread. The only problem, sitting here at 4.30am doing this, is that my feet have to poke out the bottom of the slanket to operate the foot pedals and I've also taken my slippers off so that I can feel the pedals properly so they're FREEZING!

The last couple of weeks have been absolutely non-stop 18 hour days. I've taken to falling asleep on the sofa about 7pm and then trying to get to bed with the kids at 8pm. Last night I fell asleep on the bed with Louis and woke up about ten minutes later to find him looking at me, wide awake, probably wondering why I'm such a lighweight!

Labels: 2010

... 29 to go. Gearing up for interview fortnight starting Thursday. It has again been bizarre to get a direct taste of the student experience provided by my employer. Getting a recording device has proved virtually impossible - we've some in the library apparently, but they're issued on a first-come-first-basis. In practice this means I've asked them for about 9 days straight, only to be met with blank looks and shrugs of shoulders because they're all out. How the hell are you supposed to coordinate your research interviews when the equipment loan is like the national lottery?

Anyway, one good thing has come out of this farce, which is that in the course of my bitching and moaning about my predicament, my friend Cathy told me about transcription devices with foot pedals. These apparently enable you to jump back and forward in your interview recording with a footpedal, so you don't have to keep stopping the typing. Brilliant! It should save hours and hours. I've sourced a supplier in Cheadle and will be off there tomorrow to pick one up. Cost is a bit steep - £160 - but I should be able to sell it on eBay afterwards for about the same. So, bring it on!

Labels: 2010

... 33 days to go. This is the week the big words came into clearer focus. Since talking with my supervisor on Tuesday I've been re-reading some theory, reflecting, and developing a new understanding of where I am.

I realise now that my approach up to now - gearing up to test hypotheses with control groups, operationalised variables and 'classic' experimental design - has been influenced too strongly by my scientific, logical, rational background.

I've realised through the recent coaching that the subjects' perception of the process, especially around their goal-setting and motivation, is messier than this world view would suggest. As a result, I'll still be assessing some of those original hypotheses, but I'll also be focussing much more on understanding the subjects' inner meaning and experience as they've engaged with the training and coaching processes. Apparently this reflects a more constructivist epistemology and an interpretivist, phenomenological theoretical perspective. Phew, glad we got that straight.

I must admit it's a bit uncomfortable inhabiting this post-positivist world, and I don't know what I'll be able to assert at the end of it all, if anything, but it feels much more like a learning and development experience, for sure.

Labels: 2010