Reflexivity Introduction:
For my qualitative research course we have an optional assignment of keeping a researcher reflexivity journal. I decided to start recording my emerging thoughts about myself as a researcher as blog posts. One of our first assignments was to reflect on who we are as researchers, and as far as formal research goes, I am a novice. My master's program focused on a literature review, rather than conducting research. In my undergraduate I did a few projects that incorporated research, but I had not had research courses, so they would not be considered up to standard. In my classroom, I constantly have an itch (or typically itches) that I am scratching. My blog has been an integral part in the last couple of years of teaching to record my thoughts and reflect. That is why I thought it would be appropriate to consider thinking about this new phase in my professional development here.
My summer research class focuses on the continuum of research methods. It was a great introduction, but within the first couple weeks of my class focusing solely on qualitative research, I realized that the summer course truly just scratched the surface. There is still so much to learn, and as with anything in education, I know that most of my in-depth understanding will come from practice. I am looking forward to an assignment that my two fall professors have collaborated on for our classes, where we meet with a superintendent for dinner on a Sunday evening and then visit the district's schools all day on Monday. We will have opportunities to observe and conduct interviews. Prior to that assignment we will conduct a practice interview with a university faculty member about their research. I already know who I am going to interview and have been having fun thinking of some questions.
Reflexivity Entry 1:
Right now I am most concerned with the topic of my research for these fall classes. Potential dissertation topics have also been flowing through my mind for quite some time as well. When I am reading different research examples I have learned to keep a pen close by in order to record my ideas. I started this back in the summer, and I have many writer's notebook entries about possibilities. I have discovered that it is easy to get me excited about potential areas to explore, yet I am still unsure of knowing when it is a "good" topic or not. The areas that interest me the most are language, literacy, technology, professional development for teachers, and teacher philosophies.
At our last class meeting, about two weeks ago (we had last week off since it was a holiday), our professor talked about how she likes to make sure that her participants benefit from the research that she conducts. I had never really thought about this before, thinking more about potential contributions to the field without really thinking about a direct impact on the participants. The reason why this had not occurred to me is because I always think about the researcher as trying to blend in and not interfere with what is happening in the context. However, I like the concept of participants benefiting, so I am paying attention to exactly how this happens.
With my readings for tomorrow's class, I was thinking about how this seems to mean that in order to benefit participants researchers must go in ready to learn from participants and highlight what is going well/the participants' expertise. I am really grappling with how it seems like in this scenario that it would be hard to point out deficiencies. Yet, research also needs to be honest. The researcher would need to be forthright about whatever observations he/she ends up having. It seems like this will be a delicate area that is personal to each researcher - trying to honor their participants, while also contributing to the field in a forthright manner. Ideally, the observations will point toward findings that portray the participant(s) in a glowing manner. That would be the easy part. On the other hand, it would be awkward if the practices observed point toward a lack of awareness or support in the area of research.
Since I will be reading like a writer as I plunge into this new genre, I will be paying attention to these two main areas that I have been wondering about - topic selection and researcher-participant relationships. In future posts I will continue to reflect on how these questions are clarified, as well as about some of the other components of qualitative research.
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