Self-assessment of own reflections from Week 8-13

When attending the first class after the semester break, I felt overwhelmed and worried because of the high expectations put on us by the lecturer. But with her guidance, slowly I was able to adapt to the weekly session and tried my best to keep up with the assignments given. I could also see that the lecturer tried to approach this course using different strategies so that the objectives of this course could be achieved.

So what did I learnt from this course?

Firstly, setting up my own blog and using Yahoo! group as a communication tool. I do admit this was the first time I have ever use both as part of the course. But through ‘trial and error’ and help from my group, I was able to post my self-reflection and screenshot my assignments in the blog.

Secondly, through group presentation where we were allocated a topic on qualitative research and presented to the class, I was able to work as a team and commit to the work assigned to me from meeting up with the group to doing research to presenting and finally answering a set of questions from other groups. I also learnt a lot from other groups’ presentations where facts/information presented would undoubtedly help support  and ensure the quality of my research exercise.

Thirdly. we have the opportunities to use two softwares which we have downloaded as instructed by the lecturer. Nvivo9 and Transana software were used to analyze data as part of our assignment in this course. It was a struggle at first to use these two softwares but nevertheless, I take it as a challenge and with practice, able to post and screenshot the assignment on time.

Fourthly, through discussion with Group J, we were able to agree on the marks to be given to other groups allocated for us to assess as well as assess our own group. After a thorough discussion, we sincerely hoped the marks and justification given would satisfy the other groups and we would get the same considerations by those assessing our group.

For my own self-assessment, I deserve 10 marks because I had (1) completed all tasks given within the allocated time and (2) participated as a member of Group J by meeting up with the other members in the group, doing my own research, presenting and answering questions posted by our course-mates. These reflect my effort and commitment to do the course to my best ability and sincerely hope that I would be given the full marks.

Lastly, Thank You to Dr Irene for the guidance and for being patience and understanding to us throughout the weeks:))

Self-Reflection for 18th April 2012

Finally! today was the last lecture for this module and with that, my last self-reflection for this semester… The class started by getting into our own group, in my case Group J, to come up with 10 criteria to evaluate a qualitative research. As a group we managed to come up with the 10 criteria within 30 minutes such as validity, reliability, trustworthy and so on. For the following class discussion where each group was supposed to contribute to one criteria/elaborate on the existing criteria given by other groups, Group J contributed to the class discussion by presenting the idea of  ‘authenticity’ as one of the criteria, where the researcher come up with a genuine/original idea on how to conduct the research and not duplicating other research designs. This class discussion in a way was a summary of what is learnt in the module and to an extent, reflect the students’ understanding what the module was all about. These criteria could also be use as a checklist to ensure the quality of our own research study.

 

The second session was a sharing session of the students’ priori and emerging themes using Nvivo9 software. The data analysis was conducted  on the students’ research issues and self-reflection which were posted in our respective blog. It was interesting to see that the themes that emerged from the data reflect on what was done in the module from ‘understanding’ to ‘research’ and ‘present’.

 

The last session was evaluating the course/programme using a “qualitative feedback to the lecturer” form. As agreed by the whole class, the evaluation was done as a group instead of individually. As a group we assessed whether the objectives of the course/programme were reached as well as give suggestions on how to improve the course/programme. Hopefully, our comments would be considered as constructive feedback to improve the course/programme so future students would benefit the most, if not much better, than our intake.

Assignment: transcripting using Transana software

Screenshot 1: adding series

Screenshot 2: adding episode

Screenshot 3: adding transcript

Screenshot 4, 5 & 6: Transcripting audio file

Self-Reflection for 11th April 2012

This week’s lecture began by explaining to students on how group and individual assignment are assessed for this module. Three types of assessment would be used for group assignment: self-assessment, peer-assessment and assessment by lecturer herself, whereas for individual assignment it would be through self-assessment and assessment by lecturer. An assessment sheet had been provided by the lecturer, consisting of 10 criteria and 3 descriptors. Hopefully assessment could be completed before the next lesson.

 

The other half of the lecture focused on Transana software which we have downloaded earlier with Nvivo9 software. A step by step procedure on how to use Transana to transcripts video were shown. I have been struggling with Nvivo9 software in the last week and I would not be able to complete the assignment 1 without help from my course-mates. Hopefully Transana software is not as complicated as Nvivo9 and as with previous assignment I would try my best to complete it within the given time..

Assignment 1 (Part A)

REPORTING

Emerging themes

1. Research

2. Issues

 

Some references are made of what I have learned during the group presentations:

“…were introduced to what the research is all about: definitions, types…” (Week 9, Reference 4)

“…and strengths of each qualitative research. In addition, some groups have…” (Week 9, Reference 5)

“…ethic issues arising from different research articles were discussed and from…” (Week 10)

 

Another example where issues highlighted by the presentations:

“…for a discussion of the issues arising from our research, where…” (Week 8)

“…highlighted. Aside from this, ethic issues arising from different research articles…” (Week 10)

“…the presentations had also covered issues of validity and reliability which…” (Week 11)

 

A priori themes

1. Positive attitude

2. Relevancy to research exercise

 

Positive attitude. In this node, I am aware that positive attitudes are important in completing the assignments given:

“….it is a challenge and I will do my best to complete the assignments given using a variety of methods allocated…” (Week 8)

“…..I do feel that all of us had done our best to find and disseminate information to fellow classmates regarding the topic…” (Week 9, Reference 1)

“I hope that Group J would continue to work together as a team as we have some more work to do for this topic.” (Week 9, Reference 2)

 

Relevancy to research exercise. In this node, I found out that the presentations are linked with my research exercise:

“After a brief discussion, we agreed that my research methodology should be mixed i.e. involving quantitative and qualitative methods. The methods I’ll be using for my research are questionnaire and face-to-face interviews with students.” (Week 8)

“…case study research as my research exercise would be using this approach. Of all the qualitative research, I do agree that this strategy is the most suitable in order to understand complex interrelationships of a purposeful selected group of participants, in my case it would be to explore the relationships between awareness, knowledge and attitude towards the environment of a group of students.” (Week 9)

“The presentations also gave me factual information i.e. definitions, types and so on, which I could use in my research exercise.” (Week 10)

“The most relevant to me is content analysis, where the group had managed to briefly introduced the different types of content analysis. Because of this, I had managed to narrow down the type of content analysis I would use for my research exercise.” (Week 11, Reference 1)

“Group Y’s presentation was also informative and useful as they had described the 8 strategies for promoting validity and reliability in any research. For me, this is also important for my research exercise as it would ensure that the findings would be ‘true and accurate’ from the standpoint of the researcher, participants as well as the readers.” (Week 11, Reference 2)

Assignment 1 (Part B)

Screenshot 1: Creating priori themes

Screenshot 2: Selecting content for the priori theme

Screenshot 3: Word frequency to come up with emerging themes

Screenshot 4: Selecting word as the emerging theme

Screenshot 5: Content of emerging theme

Screenshot 6: Exporting nodes in html format

Screenshot 7: Reporting the data analysis

Self-Reflection for 4th April 2012

This week was the turn of the last two groups to present their topic:

Group AA: Issues of Qualitative Research – Role of researcher; rich in detail

Group GG: Issues with mixed methods

As with previous weeks, the presentations were also informative and interesting. I am especially thankful for Group GG as they managed to cover issues relating with mixed methods that I am not aware before. This is important to me as mixed methods would be my research design. I have posted a question for Group GG and AA respectively, hopefully they can answer my questions to enhance my understanding on the topics presented.

After the presentations, the lesson then focus on individual assignment for Week 12-13. For this assignment, we have to come up with themes from our own self reflection of Week 8-11, using Nvivo9 software we were asked to download before this lesson. The lecturer had taken the initiative to come up with a simple guide as well as explaining in class how to use the software. I felt overwhelmed in class as this was the first time I am exposed to such software but I believe with practice, I would be able to use the software with confident. I would do my best to complete this assignment in time before going to other aspects of data analysis.