E1n1verse

Doing Qualitative Research: The Book

I was reading Chapter 3 of David Silverberg’s Doing Qualitative Research: A Practical Handbook (Silverman, 2010 p.17-42) in September.  In it he gives three research diaries of Ph.D. students he had, detailing how they went from the start of their research projects, through methodology choice, and then through to data analysis.  While it was quite striking how coherent and “painless” the stories were, the more relevant realization I took away from it was the importance of having a framework around which to direct your research and to make sense of your data.  In two of the cases, the students used conversational analysis, a ethnomethodological approach.

Conversation analysis (commonly abbreviated as CA) is the study of talk in interaction (both verbal and non-verbal in situations of everyday life). CA generally attempts to describe the orderliness, structure and sequential patterns of interaction, whether institutional (in school, a doctor’s surgery, court or elsewhere) or in casual conversation.
Wikipedia (2010a)

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Credit: Remixed by Michelle A. Hoyle from an image of Howard Rheingold by Joi Ito

Image: Howard Rheingold and Elsheindra, Michelle’s World of Warcraft character, together at last.

Howard Rheingold contacted me in September to interview me about World of Warcraft and learning, because he knows I’m researching communities and learning in World of Warcraft.  We were finally able to meet up today for the interview.   He is working on a book about the kinds of skills people need for life online.

His first question was: What kind of collaborative skills have I found to be valuable from World of Warcraft?

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These are some notes I made while at a meeting of Open University people interested in gaming, research, and learning on October 21, 2010.  It was organized by Jo Iacovides (The Institute for Educational Technology) and Marian Petre (Computing).  I received an invitation to attend early last month.

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