This time I’m removing the interviewee’s sign off, which is their complete address. If I do any word frequency or tag coud analysis, sign offs like that could skew the figures. On the other hand, in the conferences, I think I’l keep in people’s stock signatures because they perform a number of functions. Oh, and […]
Nothing’s ever straightforward, is it? I realised that I asked different questions of the tutors and the students, so ‘question 1’ won’t mean the same thing in every place. So now I have question 1 (the tutor’s question) and question 1s. I have an interview which intersperses my questions with the answers, so Ive added […]
So, I had my eyes tested and realised why I’ve not been getting on with my literature review – I can’t see to read the literature! New glasses on order, so I’m making a start on preparing my data for analysis. You’d think epistolary interviews would be straightforward to input, but there are decisions to […]
I’m revisiting my pilot study as I rewrite the conference paper which I based on it. I’ve realised that not all my data was coded using the final coding scheme, so I’m doing a quick code. I’ve realised that what I’m looking for really affects my coding. I’m not particularly interested in course materials and […]
I’ve run into a real problem with the idea of ‘comunity of practice’. What is the difference between a CoP and a community? Lots of people just take the CoP idea as is, and run with it. People who critique the ideas seem to do so in terms of thinking the model through – do […]
Just to remind me what my thinking was at this point: · Learning is a social activity and therefore it is always situated culturally, historically and socially. · Learning communities provide good conditions for learning, because they come together with that purpose in mind and can mobilize aspects of community such as shared purpose, shared […]
I’m not engaging in action research at the moment but, if I ever decide to take part in an action research study in the future, here are the methodological principles: Methodological principles of action research Action research integrates research and action in a series of flexible cycles. The collection and analysis of data, the […]
I’m changing my research questions again – this time more profoundly than usual. Which key skills do members of an online learning community use to support their learning and teaching? Which key resources do members of an online learning community use to support their learning and teaching? Resources identified by Neil Mercer in’Words and Minds’ […]
This is an extract from my supervision minutes from last December. It contains a lot of points which are important to the development of my research, so I’ve put it here to remind me of these. Examine the resources used by students – local resources and broader social resources – and at how they use […]
I’ve finally taken the plunge and got all my epistolary interviews with students and tutors underway. This was supposed to happen much earlier, but I got held up by the issue of which conferences could be archived which has really only just been sorted out. I didn’t want to end up interviewing a random selection […]