third time around

So, at first this week I became pretty excited about the discussions of Qualitative Research. First of all, I find SPSS to be rather confusing and generally unpleasant to a non-math oriented individual such as myself, but more importantly, I thought that Observation sounded like a good way to really get some good information about discussion, especially if I wanted to zero in not only on how frequently discussion is used, but what kind of questions are asked as well as what kinds of answers the students respond with. I also like that with Qualitative Research you don't have to have as much of a hypothesis as just a good question, which is what I have right now. I pictured myself going into some classrooms this fall with my notebook and pen and easily scribbling down a bunch of coherent observations about discussions. And then...we tried it today. I found the practice exercises very challenging. Not impossible by any means, but tougher than I expected. While I am not ruling out Observation for my research, it is certainly good that we practiced a bit so that I will not be quite as idealistic about what will happen when I enter the classroom to observe.

Interviewing, as I mentioned last week, will likely be a very important tool for gathering data. At this point I don't see the value in a "talk aloud" necessarily, but a group interview would be beneficial as it might allow me to easily see the differences between different teachers conceptions of discussion. Now that I think of it, observation would be useful to see just how closely teachers practice what they preach. So, there is surely room for it after all!