a relaxing over-lunch supervision meeting...

and the follow up e-mail just sent to both supervisors. I already feel a weight lifted off my shoulders for a while anyway :-)

This is just a brief summary of the main issues discussed earlier today



- a revised work plan was presented that will hopefully allow more time for the analysis process while maintaining the overall September 2012 deadline (see attached)
- results of a pilot coding exercise completed in Atlas were discussed; the exercise allowed me to test for the use of the literacy and text practices code categories and develop coding category descriptions for these and any additional codes resulting from this initial analysis exercise. I've developed an organisational structure for my data to match the organisation framework of the Atlas package - this activity has forced me to make firm decisions about which data segments will be included in the formal Atlas informed analysis activity (attached is a rough illustration of my data hierarchy, which also contains the total number of documents that will be analysed in Atlas). The code categories developed during this pilot exercise will inform the first round of analysis of the Film and Video department.
- I have about 10-15 outstanding recordings that need to be transcribed (attached find an inventory of what I've completed to date based on their different 'transcriptions types'. The green shaded blocks indicate the outstanding transcriptions)
- my next deadline is 15 September: a descriptive case study discussion of the Film and Video department


If you would like a copy of the pilot code descriptions I'm happy to e-mail this to you.


Have a wonderful long weekend (bank holiday weekend)

my pilot in atlas

Yay! It has finally started...well if this were a multimodal blog you would realise that the written expression is meant as a sarcastic take on the that fact that while it has actually started, there is certainly nothing to be remotely enthusiastic about. Basically today I  started to pilot my basic coding categories on a small set of documents that are fairly similar to the types that will form part of the larger thesis analysis. I only really had two upfront codes - literacy practices and textual practices which I tried to operationalised i.e. explain how I would identify them in my data. As the coding progressed more code categories were added and sub-levels created. I now need to refine what I mean by these initial coding categories so that I can be consistent in how I use them across a larger data set. I worked on 4 documents and it took me the whole freaking day. Just very basic coding - nothing fancy, nothing special...leading to another important, although recently, clearly overlooked realisation. I HAVE TO MUCH FLIPPING DATA! I can't physically code it all - well certainly not if I want to finish this f&%$ing PhD by September 2012. So I've been brutal and cut throat today. I've made decisions and I'm going to stick to  it. In relation to the data that will be included in the Atlas formal analysis process - my selection is enough to tell my story in a plausible, credible and justifiable way.

But alas, Atlas has brought along some additional organisational and structural challenges for me to overcome - yes more organisation and structuring of data into folders and files ready for analysis (well this ever end I ask myself). Seems like I'm more of an administrator than a researcher at the moment.

Data Organisation and Selection for Atlas Analysis

a pilot it is

I've been subsumed (correct word?) by data and transcribing for the past week. Somewhat resentful that my current work-plan does not allow or cater for the amount of time I've take to get my data ready for analysis. This weekend I finished a complete data set for one of my case studies which meant I could start the analysis process for Case 1. Of course Case 2 is incomplete - there are about 8 formal interviews that still need to be transcribed and a stack of interactional data and informal interviews.

But, today in the spirit of making a stab at the analysis phase of my work, I had a mini-tutorial session with SP on the Atlas software that I will use for my analysis. We got to talking about all things related and unrelated to the software, the analysis process, approaches to coding, operationalisation of codes, what to say to supervisors, being burnt out and the importance to taking breaks from one's work, using drop-box and how to manage my image files and their relation to the coding process. But long story short...I have too much data, or rather I have more than enough data to make a solid and valid argument. Generating additional data through the transcription of all my collected recordings is not a smart move that this stage. Well that's the advice been offered to me anyway. And I know its good advice, I've been told this before - be strategic because you don't have time - but one is always caught in that precarious place where you fear that leaving out 'that interview' will rob your argument, your thesis of that all important bits of information. You become over cautious about everything and 'precious' about all the data you collected, which of course does a lot for your ego in the comparison stakes with other PhD students - which when you come to think if it, is as pointless an activity as young men bragging about the size of their penises, because as any experienced woman would know, it really has nothing to do with penis size its how that freaking penis gets used.

So what to do? Well firstly - take stock of the all data I've collected and make a firm decision about outstanding transcription requirements. Here I need to be brutal - seriously! I don't have the time to become precious about what data gets 'included' in my final data set. On another level, all the data I've collected will be used in my work - simply the act of collecting a piece of data has assisted in the development of my ideas and understandings of the various contexts. The fact that it isn't directly referenced in the actual thesis - is almost irrelevant. Secondly, I need to Pilot the data in Atlas and refine my coding schemes.

So that's the work cut out for me for the rest of the week. Happy Days!

Transcribing, transcribing, transcribing

I have nothing much to say, except that I'm transcribing my arse off...Oh and I've made some decision about South Africa. I think I will be back for about 4-5 weeks in the new year. Just having made that decision, not doing anything else about it yet, like book a ticket etc...has given me a new spring in my typing fingers...Ok I'm short on comic relief. Anybody would be after almost 2 weeks of solid transcribing. I'm not being ruthless enough with my raw data, I want to capture too much...scared I'm going to leave something out.

My new tactic - tomorrow I'm going to try just listening to the interviews and interactional recordings I made. Lets see if that can get me to Atlas_ti a bit quicker.

How Swedish people spend their sunny summer days and early evenings

an issue of representation

It was either I continue with my transcription duties or sit and write a blog entry. I figured blogging would be way more interesting than trying to make my fingers type as fast as the voice I was hearing on the other side of my headset. I think I'm at my most distracted when I have to transcribe or listen to recorded interviews. Anyway, to help get myself out of the mountain of un-transcribed interviews I've allocated a specific day for each freaking interview - a make shift roster in the hope that this will spur me on to finish this boring task and get on with the analysis. A draft case study needing writing awaits! Due date 15 September.

But I also needed to write up my supervision notes, which meant I had to listen to the recording I made -see no getting away from listening to recordings this week - and of course I get a more refined, sophisticated sense of the discussion from the 'second reading/listening'. An important issue raised during supervision, and one which has occupied me for a while now, is how I'm going to approach how I represent my participants in my thesis. On a simple level I need to make a decision about how I will anonymise my participants - even though many of them weren't that bothered about me protecting their identity. But they signed a consent form that says I would do this, so I have to do it. Some even picked their own pseudonyms. So will I chose to de-gender and de-racialise their identities or maintain this aspect and simply change their names? The more fundamental issue of course, and the one that concerns me most, is what are the consequences of such a choice in relation to how participants come across or how they get represented in the thesis, as reflective of the broader socio-political context that is South Africa. Will they then simply become yet another example of how black-african, coloured, white people or women 'behave' within an educational context, maybe reflective of rampant stereotypes about how they should or shouldn't, do or don't, behave? Will my thesis simply reinforce negative, destructive, one-dimensional views and perceptions of these different groups and is it my duty as a responsible, ethical researcher and South African to ensure that how I portray my participants doesn't perpetuate such stereotypes. I don't have a answer to these questions and concerns, I've been reading around the area of race and representation within the SA context and I'm interested in exploring post-colonial theorisation more in the hope that I will come to some workable solution. And I haven't even included the debates I need to have about how I will represent myself in my thesis.

What is clear is that an additional angle, for inclusion in my thesis, has been raised by this concern; namely the need for a substantial discussion of research ethics, especially the contradiction that lay between theory and practice when applied to the issue of confidentiality and privacy within different contextual realities - a discussion I think that started way back in my MRes year.

 Goodness, guess what? I'm talking about my thesis as if it is a reality...wow! It really has begun.

and the world is a better place when...

Supervision goes well.

I had a good supervision session today. Good because it was relaxed and because my supervisors were generally happy with what I had to say and the progress I was making. It was also good because I didn't feel constrained by my language use or unable to express myself. But I guess I'm at that stage of the game where the stakes are pretty low. I'm still transcribing, the analysis hasn't started and I haven't started to write anything related to my research. Well I have been writing, but nothing that could remotely be called academic. So things are wonderful and filled with optimism and possibility. So I don't have to justify anything I'm doing - well I do, but not in the same way as I will have to once I start trying to make sense of the data I've collected and try to construct an argument based on my research. We talked about what I've been doing to date, how my current activities fit or don't fit into my proposed work plan, some of the choices I need to make and how to move forward armed with an awareness of all these variables.

An interesting outcome of this meeting was the unexpected validation of a little document I constructed - that was meant to plot out the 'story of my data collection process'. My intentions for the document was simply that it acted as a record of my fieldwork activities and that it serve as a springboard for further reflective engagements with the activities that comprised my fieldwork experience. I was going to go back to it and continually add notes, reflections, comments as I constructed a more detailed and reflexive account of data collection journey. But apparently in its current form it's providing a valuable roadmap of my experiences that an external assessor might find very insightful as a complementary guide to a methodology chapter. Wow...I certainly didn't see that one coming, but I'm chuffed nonetheless because the document has evolved in a positive way beyond its narrow original purpose. This might be the first addition to my appendix. My thesis has started, albeit with the appendix - who said you need to start at the beginning anyway.

Another positive outcome from the meeting - well not directly the meeting, but more the preparation for the meeting - was that I'm actually using this blog in a productive way to support the reflexive component of my thesis development. I referred to an entry I made a couple of weeks ago regarding how my fieldnote practices  evolved. While I have been sensitive about writing about my fieldwork experiences, as an ethical response to protecting the participants of my study, it is acting as a valuable source of reflective commentary on my researcher practices. Again, as I start to construct or re-construct my fieldwork experiences this will be a fruitful and valuable repository of insights.

In six weeks time I will have to deliver my first piece of PhD thesis writing...that is pretty significant. At the moment my thesis world feels like broad brush watercolour strokes on a canvas. You can just about make out defined shapes and elements, but it is mostly sweeping colours, bleeding into each other across the canvas. Lots of finer details that still  missing from the picture, lots of finer details I haven't quite figured out yet. And I'm filled equally with excitement, anticipation and anxiety, trepidation at the prospect of filling in that finer detail.

transcribing in the grey, humidity of England

On a positive note, I realised that I get up every morning and want to do my transcriptions. That, without any prompting or encouragement I actually want to work on my research - a rather positive little silver lining in the dark clouds outside. Surprisingly, I haven't found it too tedious as yet, but I still have a very long way to go. The surface of the transcription work has just been scratched. Why did I think I would only need 2 weeks to get it all done? So I'm at least a week behind my schedule. I'm on track, of course, if I'm following my Plan B workplan - but that's a swear word at the moment - "jou ma se Plan B". 


So I sit here in my room, the one I rearranged on Tuesday night, and now surprising has space for a chest of draws, with my headset on, starring intently at my laptop screen, with my new glare-resistant glasses, which are really too big for my face, but they were the cheapest, sort-of-cool frames I could get at Tesco's (hell! Tesco, exactly! not the height of fashion and sophistication by a long shot), with my foot on the pedal (yes I use a foot pedal) and my fingers tapping at the key board at an alarming speed as I make almost instantaneous decision about which bits of the discussion I will or wont include. Ah! the analysis has started before I've transferred my data  to Atlas...it has all begun.


I'm pleased I'm all excited about this rather menial,though crucial task, because it ain't no fun sitting in this room by myself, where one day blurs into the next and I fantasize about engaging conversations with really people in a shared physical space. Saying hello to a shop assistant as you pack your groceries does seems to fall short on the social contact stakes.