A body isn't just a single part blown up into something huge. It's all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, "I'm not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don't belong to this body," would that make it so? If Ear said, "I'm not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don't deserve a place on the head," would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it. -- I Corinthians 12:14, The Message
Imagine for a moment that you have been asked to write a reflection in which you detail the manner in which your right eye contributes to the ways in which you live your life. You might naturally write about vision, perhaps describing the process by which your eyes take in the beauty of creation, or allow you to read a compelling story, or to watch your children at play. Certainly, in writing about the eye, the author must address what is perceived visually. However, simply articulating what is known about vision would not be enough. The assignment is, after all to reflect on the RIGHT eye. What is it that your right eye alone perceives?
Imagine further that in writing about vision, you are successful in describing the function of just one eye. Has the topic been adequately covered? What about the contributions that eye makes to balance, to the ways in which the things around you are preceived - the depth and breadth of the world, the simple act of reaching out to touch an object - all would be changed by the loss of the right eye. It is possible to live without that eye, but the totality of the body is affected by the loss of any part.
For me, writing about my faith is comparable to writing about the functions of just one eye. My faith is connected to every part of my being, to the ways in which I move through the world. To consider my faith as a solitary element is impossible for me. As with the loss of one eye, I would continue to perceive the world, but my balance would be thrown, my ability to reach out and touch would be disturbed.
In fact, the integration of my faith is so ubiquitous that there is no part of me that does not incorporate and consider my relationship to Christ, so completely that I rarely notice its effects on my day to day actions. For this reason, I cannot say perceptible changes to my faith have occured as a result of taking a class in qualitative research. Conversely, I can say with certainty that my faith has informed the manner in which I perceived the content of the class - in ways that I may never fully understand or articulate.
Throughout the semester, I have seen glimpses of my faith at play in the research arena: The moment during an interview for another project, in which I was almost desperate because I could not reach out to a hurting person who had rejected all thought of the healing God whom she needed. The realization that Truth comes in many forms, and that even as I receive the gift of Story from participants, I must offer the gift of trust. The involuntary admission during an interview that I, too, serve the living God. Those moments clarify for me the differences between a researcher, and a Christian researcher.
My very nature craves and serves Story. Transmitting ideas, making word pictures, is an art I continually practice and admire. Skillful storytelling trumps reality for me. This makes the world of qualitative research a dangerous one. I have come to realize that I belong in this place, but that I must always be on guard against the temptation to embellish or to serve the art rather than the Story itself. For some, methods that ensure rigor are but the final touch on research design. For me, they will be the failsafe that catches me before accuracy is sacrificed to art.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
Research Journal - Analytic Memo
Some changes in thought regarding the themes I anticipated revealing through my study on Honors Scholars: Challenge is a great motivator to these students and will be explored through the literature in the final writeup, while Hope Theory seems to be unrelated to the ways in which these students move through the world and articulate their thoughts about success and achieving. I am beginning to see that in order to need hope, a student must at some point either lack hope or experience the kind of setbacks that require the instilling of hopefullness. I will have to throw that part of my theorizing out and continue to mine the themes for other ties to literature.
I find this part of the study really difficult, as I feel I don't know enough to know even what it is that I don't know! This also helps me to understand the type of silo-ed expertise that tends to develop as good thinkers follow only one line of discovery - Carol Dweck looking at mindsets or Barbara Fredrickson examining the elements that undergird her Broaden and Buiild theory. Unless one becomes expert in one specific area there is just too much literature to grasp and synthesize in relation to new areas of exploration.
I find this part of the study really difficult, as I feel I don't know enough to know even what it is that I don't know! This also helps me to understand the type of silo-ed expertise that tends to develop as good thinkers follow only one line of discovery - Carol Dweck looking at mindsets or Barbara Fredrickson examining the elements that undergird her Broaden and Buiild theory. Unless one becomes expert in one specific area there is just too much literature to grasp and synthesize in relation to new areas of exploration.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Research Journal - Methodological Memo / Faith Reflection
It seems to me that there is a tacit agreement between researcher and subjects or participants in research that an effort will be made to tell, not only a truthful story, but a complete one. What a difficult task! The reading I have done this week tells me that even skilled, experienced researchers struggle with finding a balance between artfully writing a study and telling the complete story, including every nuance and detail.
One falls in love with the subjects as well, and it is difficult to know when to stop the process, when to declare the interviews at an end. Once that end has been reached, it feels like a betrayal of the gift of Story that has been received for the researcher not to include every last statement, every possible theme. How does one consolidate the wide spectrum of experience in an exemplary educator, for instance, into three or four overarching themes? What does one do with the MANY lovely statements the subject has offered that do not make the final writeup of the research?
I believe that all researchers must face this dilemma to a degree. But it seems that a Christian must struggle that much more diligently because we seek to reveal Truth and want to honor God with a job well done.
In the end, while the discovery is exciting, and the writing fullfilling in a way that quantitative research can never match, the daunting task of capturing, yet not over-reaching, with regard to telling the Story makes qualitative research one of the hardest things I have ever done!
One falls in love with the subjects as well, and it is difficult to know when to stop the process, when to declare the interviews at an end. Once that end has been reached, it feels like a betrayal of the gift of Story that has been received for the researcher not to include every last statement, every possible theme. How does one consolidate the wide spectrum of experience in an exemplary educator, for instance, into three or four overarching themes? What does one do with the MANY lovely statements the subject has offered that do not make the final writeup of the research?
I believe that all researchers must face this dilemma to a degree. But it seems that a Christian must struggle that much more diligently because we seek to reveal Truth and want to honor God with a job well done.
In the end, while the discovery is exciting, and the writing fullfilling in a way that quantitative research can never match, the daunting task of capturing, yet not over-reaching, with regard to telling the Story makes qualitative research one of the hardest things I have ever done!
Reading Log #5 - Part 2
Reading Log, Golden-Biddle & Locke, Introduction and Chap. 1
Summary:
The authors explain their philosophy regarding qualitative research and the manner in which it should be written via the introduction to the book. They believe that qual research must be thoroughly linked to existing research via connections with the literature, in order for qual research to be viewed as making a serious contribution to the thought in any discipline.
Using the example of a child's cartoon story of a melting snowman, Golden-Biddle and Locke introduce the idea of a "theorized storyline," or a way of writing that links field research with academic literature.
Chapter 1 concerns what the authors term "the writing enterprise in the context of our professional lives." (p. 10) They use the chapter to illustrate the tension that lies between the spare academic style of writing and the need for fuller, richer, more nuanced writing that conveys not just the facts but the perceptions of meaning as well.
Reflection:
As the authors state, "the practice of academic writing is neither plain nor simple." (p. 11)This struggling academic writer must shout AMEN SISTAHS! to that assertion. It is especially difficult, nigh unto schizophrenic,to write one minute for a class requiring the academic wriring associated with quantitative research, then to switch gears the next moment in order to write in the richly narrative style required for qualitative work. The importance of learning to write in both styles is not lost on me, yet there are days on which I would like to shout "Enough already! - pick a style and let me get on with it!" I do realize that this ultimately happens when one chooses a dissertation topic, research design, and hence a way of looking at and writing about data. Until then I would just ask the folks on both sides of the textual fence to understand the strain that straddling said fence can cause. Pun fully intended.
Side note: I take great umbrage at the statement characterizing the library as "that academically removed knowledge repository." (p. 10) It is precisely as a means to becoming less removed, more in tune, and open to the great conversations of Higher Education that this librarian chose to pursue a PhD, not in librarianship, but in Higher Ed! :) That said, I have to forgive any authors who reference my favorite book on the wriring process, their mention of Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird absolves them of any anti-library offenses for which they may be guilty.
Summary:
The authors explain their philosophy regarding qualitative research and the manner in which it should be written via the introduction to the book. They believe that qual research must be thoroughly linked to existing research via connections with the literature, in order for qual research to be viewed as making a serious contribution to the thought in any discipline.
Using the example of a child's cartoon story of a melting snowman, Golden-Biddle and Locke introduce the idea of a "theorized storyline," or a way of writing that links field research with academic literature.
Chapter 1 concerns what the authors term "the writing enterprise in the context of our professional lives." (p. 10) They use the chapter to illustrate the tension that lies between the spare academic style of writing and the need for fuller, richer, more nuanced writing that conveys not just the facts but the perceptions of meaning as well.
Reflection:
As the authors state, "the practice of academic writing is neither plain nor simple." (p. 11)This struggling academic writer must shout AMEN SISTAHS! to that assertion. It is especially difficult, nigh unto schizophrenic,to write one minute for a class requiring the academic wriring associated with quantitative research, then to switch gears the next moment in order to write in the richly narrative style required for qualitative work. The importance of learning to write in both styles is not lost on me, yet there are days on which I would like to shout "Enough already! - pick a style and let me get on with it!" I do realize that this ultimately happens when one chooses a dissertation topic, research design, and hence a way of looking at and writing about data. Until then I would just ask the folks on both sides of the textual fence to understand the strain that straddling said fence can cause. Pun fully intended.
Side note: I take great umbrage at the statement characterizing the library as "that academically removed knowledge repository." (p. 10) It is precisely as a means to becoming less removed, more in tune, and open to the great conversations of Higher Education that this librarian chose to pursue a PhD, not in librarianship, but in Higher Ed! :) That said, I have to forgive any authors who reference my favorite book on the wriring process, their mention of Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird absolves them of any anti-library offenses for which they may be guilty.
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