in motion

The PhD is a process more than a product, certainly for me anyway. I suspect that I will remember the process more than the final thesis or product. Processes are invariably fluid - they are in motion - they change and aren't static. Over the past week I had to change my plans and adjust my deliverables for the next 2-3 months and so am feeling this sense of motion and maybe I'm also experiencing motion sickness. I was on course to work on my Research Methodology chapter over the next month but after a supervision meeting last week took up the suggestion that I should push ahead with the analysis process (yes another process). I've been avoiding analysis because I didn't (don't) feel comfortable with going down that route at the moment. Partly, I guess because I want to remain in a comfort zone of what I know, what I can handle and analysis feels like letting go of all the supports I've created for myself. But I though what the hell just do it. Take a stab! It's not a bad thing as I need to prepare for some presentations I hope to make in Cape Town and a book chapter I need to write. So in the grand scheme of things it probably is the right thing to do now.

Prompted by this push to analyse - I've been forced to revisit my research questions, in fact to go back to my whole research design. I went back to what I know, what I've worked with before to help structure and develop my design...the famous Maxwell model. I've now discovered that I only used it once over my PhD process which is a real shame because I've found it really productive in articulating and visualising my research design in previous work.

So in April 2010 this is what I was thinking...

In June 2010 until November 2011 these were my research questions

When I started my category indexing in October/November i.e. working with my data I refined my research goals, which I describe here as 'Intellectual Puzzle' using Jennifer Mason's terminology in the following way and linked it to my then research questions...

In the past week I've revisited the whole research design incorporating the new insights gained from the case studies I had written. The cases were primarily descriptive and lacked analytical insight and going back to the research design is an attempt to help focus the analytical work I have to do. So on December 1 2011 this is what my research design and research questions looks like...

My research questions aren't perfect and I'm still playing around with syntax and implied meaning, but these questions represent, in a far more coherent way, the emergent data. This unfolding creation in many ways reflects the iterative nature of research design in qualitative and ethnographic research and how almost constant adjustment to the five elements that make up the design structure will be required. In my past research work similar changes and movement were also evident, in many respects it was expected. Now I'm almost disappointed that I haven't been more flexible in my thinking and that I didn't use this approach more strategically, periodically to guide my thinking. Raising regrets, if I now look at my data or the gaps in my data I could produce a long list of 'disappointments' relation to what I should have done better when collecting my data...but again this is a common feeling/problem that many researchers experience and while I acknowledge these gaps, I still trust the integrity of the data collection procedures I used and I can comfortably work with the data I have. As a researcher using ethnographic, qualitative and interpretative methodologies how can you not be 'disappointed' with the data or not find gaps...I don't think one can even collect the 'perfect data', because there is always movement, motion, fluidity in your thinking, in your interpretation, in the influences on your interpretation. The trick is to manage that movement and create coherence and I think the Maxwell model might be a way for me to exercise this management.