Coding Qualitative Data

 Maxwell: Designing a Qualitative Study

Negotiating a Research Relationship section stood out for me. Most of my studies involve my work so I constantly need to think about my relationship to others. For example, when we started the STEM initiative, I was doing observations as a way of collecting data. Because I am the statewide coordinator and manage the money flow, however, in some ways I am my sites' boss and/or funder. It took me sometime but I realized that because of this relationship, sites were nervous and viewed my presence as more of an observation/evaluation that their future programs depended on. Learning this relationship, I no longer conduct observations as they are not appropriate for me to do as their direct technical provider and "funder".

I have found doing interviews, focus group style with our youth is more effective. They are typically more comfortable in their space at their programs, and enjoy answering questions and telling stories surrounded by their friends.

Thinking about this section and the research that I want to do for our STEM initiative raises the questions, should others do the research for me, knowing my relationship to my sites and how they feel? Can I change my relationship with my sites/staff prior to my study, or is that impossible given my position of power in our dynamic?

An evaluation model: interview as method

 Excerpts from Systems of Care,  and Maxwell, Designing a Qualitative Study (215-232)

I'm glad that we took Maxwell's Designing a Qualitative Study in sections because it was a lot to read and take in. There are a couple of things I am beginning to understand more in depth:

1. Qualitative research is not highly respected amongst certain crowds of people. Which I find interesting when you take into consideration that the willingness to change more often comes from an emotional connection, feeling of inspiration and/or togetherness. Seeing and touching have a higher motivational imprint, therefore, as a researcher, if the purpose of your research was to inspire change based on new information, qualitative research would be more effective than quantitative.

I have experienced times when groups asked me for quantitative data, and while I complied they seemed uninterested or inspired by it. At the same time, strictly stories and experiences being shared were also dismissed as an individual experience, rather than a representation of a common issue. This is why I try to use both; to tug at the heart strings while backing up my stories with numerical facts. I would like to understand how to use these tools more effectively towards inspiring change.

2. The planning and set up for any study requires a lot of work but qualitative needs to be more fluid and flexible. When reading Maxwells introduction where he spoke about 2 models of design, the first question that arose for me was, do these 2 models of design require/allow for changing of the research question/s? I understand that the research question/s changing is common in qualitative research but he goes on to say, "Neither of these models adequately represents the logic and process of qualitative research". Just curious if research questions changing is more common in qualitative v. quantitative research.

Maxell makes qualitative research sound exhausting, change is exhausting and that's all he seems to speak about even while explaining design and presenting on different models and factors to consider in design. Its over whelming to think that you can spend a lot of time and effort designing a research study and still need to change multiple aspects of it in order to conduct an authentic and equitable study.

YDEV MA Capstone Reflection

 YDEV MA Capstone Projects Reflection

Looking at peoples past capstone projects was a lot. However, I appreciated all the different ways you could present a project, and the different topics and actions people took for their project. One of the reasons I selected the YDEV program was for the flexibility and opportunities for creativity. Seeing so many different projects and styles gives me hope that I can select a project that will benefit my work and MA. 

I feel a little nervous about how much time I will need to complete my capstone and being able to give myself that. I also feel excited and positive that I want to do my capstone around STEM Mentoring RI's data collection.

Journey to Praxis Pizza

 Journey to Praxis: Supporting Youth Activism - Research Pizza 

Research Question: "In urban communities: how do youth development workers engage adolescent youth in social justice activism?"

Type of Research: Qualitative

Ideology: Critical

Methods and tools: questionnaires, interviews, follow up interviews, observations, organizational artifacts

Analyzed: by participants, researcher and tools like NVIVO

Delivery: Article

Other notes and questions:

I found it interesting how the research had a specific timeline of August 2016 to February 2017 but the article wasn't published until 2023 - a 6 year difference since the research ended. This brought me to the conclusion that this article either took a long time to get published or it took along time to analyze the research. I'm curious about what the whole timeline was.

Page 51 mentions, "I engaged triangulation by making sure the codes and the claims in the research report were supported by (1) multiple sources of data and (2) data from different modes of collection that included interviews, observation and the review of organizational artifacts." This brought up a couple of questions for me:

• If you are conducting your own research, how do you use "multiple sources of data"? I understand that the report had other references but what if your research doesn't align with, or have similar outcomes to other sources? I understand that we are likely not reinventing the wheel of research but what happens when you get completely different outcomes to similar research?
• "Organizational artifacts" were mentioned a couple of times and examples of "promotional materials and information from organizational websites" were used. What is the process to using organizational artifacts? While other methods were outlined with a specific process in which the research was conducted, what is the process to utilizing promotional materials?

Overall, I appreciated the clarity of the article, identifying the steps to their research, which I understand is especially important to qualitative data. 

Ideologies of Research

 I did not find the videos very helpful. The metaphors and comparisons to characters from shows/movies made me more confused because I am not familiar with the references. I focused more on understanding Post Positivist but the extra research I tried to do made me more confused.

After our class discussion I realized there were a couple of things we thought were post positivist that were not characteristics of.  Putting the research ideologies in terms of how they are used in education helped a lot. I now understand that post positivist is very black and white and can be compared to typical classroom evaluations, testing, scoring schools and other common data collected from schools. This ideology only accepts the widely accepted truth and ignores any outside influences or other factors that could affect the research being done. Constructivist considers the knowledge of the researcher and the subjects. It accepts multiple realities, contexts and relations with other people; this could be focus groups, interviews and other methods that include the voices of all participants. Critical, as I understand it, is very similar to constructivist except that it takes research to the next step of action and encourages participants to lead change.

Understanding these ideologies of research, I know that I participate in all three, in my own work with STEM. We collect pre and post surveys that are very "black and white", as well as attendance and other demographic data for our funders that is typical post positivist research. However, I know my style is more constructivist, and with youth, can also be critical. The way I present data and go beyond the black and white to gain a deeper understanding of youth and our programs' experiences includes my participants and considers multiple realities. 

I think I would like to focus more on critical research for my capstone project by researching new ways of conducting our research methods with our participants and changing to more equitable practices.

Questions

Questions

1. Why cant we lead with love?

2. Why do white people have a hard time understanding and seeing white saviorism?

3. Why do funders participate in white saviorism?

4. Why do funders act like they are not racist?

5. Why do nonprofits need to compete for fundings from self interest funders?

6. Why are workplaces not focused on taking down white supremacy practices?

7. Why is it so hard for individuals and organizations to collaborate?

8. How do we collect data in an ethical and authentic manner?

9. Why does our existing data practice include 30 plus questions on a pre- and post- survey for 6-10 year olds?

10. How do we include youth and staff in the data collection practice?

11. What if we collected feedback in real time?

12. What if we changed our practices based on feedback?

13. How would our participants know that we made improvements/changes based on their feedback?

14. How do we create a trusting system of pathway programs and opportunities, both with partners and our participants?

15. How do we create more realistic goals, choosing quality over quantity?

16. What if people in nonprofits actually got paid what they needed to live comfortably?

17. What does it mean to a society when nonprofit workers need to use the services they provide the community?

18. Why do we need nonprofits?

19. Why do nonprofit CEOs make almost 10x more than their employees?

20. There are rules for nonprofits but who keeps them accountable to these rules?