Reading Journal #3: Public vs Academic

9/25/2020

OVERVIEW: Once folks are caught up with the reading from last week, you will have read descriptions of various ways that researchers who rely on qualitative methods develop their research questions, create rigorous qualitative studies, and make decisions about methodology (what practices--methods of research--will they use to try to answer their research question) they will use.

Bhattacharya offers us an example of a research question she had about a class she was teaching and how effective--or, really, what did a particular assignment accomplish in her class. She offers us a variety of research questions that propel the researcher to use different methodologies to find the answer. Different methods yield different kinds of data and, thus, answer the questions differently.

While it is true that journalists and other writers don't necessarily understand or describe their work as a "research process," it is certainly true that they would say the "do research." And what I would hope you would see is that even though they might go about it differently, many of the kinds of things that Bhattacharya says go into a rigorous qualitative research study is the same kind of work that would go into producing, for instance, a profile piece in The New York Times or, as we read for this week, a personal essay in The New Yorker.

You are reading two pieces this Monday. One is a scholarly piece in the field of Rhetoric and Composition (Writing Studies) and one is piece written by Marcus Laffey (which, it turns out, is a pseudonym), about cop life in the late 1990s in New York City.

DETAILS: Once you've read these two pieces, in your Reading Journal for this week, try to identify, for each of the two articles, what Bhattacharya would call, the research question. Secondly, how do the authors of the two pieces collect their data? What methodologies do they use (remember that Bhattacharya says that most qualitative researchers use a mix of methodologies--that can apply here too). Finally, how does each set of authors establish the "rigor" of their work, their research and their resulting argument (answer to their research question.

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5 Comments

Amanda Guindon

9/28/2020 03:27:51 pm

While the scholarly piece was slightly difficult to comprehend, it is obvious that they are focusing on new teaching and research practices that emphasize the importance of multimodality and globalization as well as describe the tools that capture literary practices, which are represented to them by students who hold transnational connections. I believe the research question for this particular piece would be how has the transition to digital platforms affected the learning and writing processes for transnationally connected persons. The authors of this piece collected their data through video interviews that they also summarized in the paper and featured online, as well as through an assignment asking students to take video of their writing process, and they focused on one particular student. I think the methodology used here would be Narrative Inquiry, and more specifically, Biographical Study, which focuses on documenting the narrative of someone else’s life using different types of interviews to compose a comprehensive narrative.
The second piece was difficult to understand, but for an entirely different reason from the first piece. Reading the piece, I wasn’t too sure where the research would come into place since it was more like a story than a proposed research process. However, if we are referencing the research that the cop in the story had to do regarding all the cases he worked, I would have to say that the research question would probably be something along the lines of how does a person’s circumstances influence their actions and willingness to put themselves first. What made me think of this were two of the cases that the cop talked about, one being with George and how he gave up information in return for his own safety, and the second being the one with the grandmother and how her family almost let her die in order to live paycheck to paycheck. The type of research that the cop does is most likely related to Case Studies as they are focusing specifically on one person, the person they are arresting or questioning, in relation to a particular experience. They establish the rigor with all the paperwork they have to do that is specific to whatever they find in the process of arresting someone or in the questioning process. I feel like this paperwork would really emphasize the strictness of the investigation and the results of their findings.

Derek Krysko

9/28/2020 03:42:27 pm

I think Bhattacharya would say that the research question for the cop piece is attempting to deconstruct, because it seems to be trying to address certain stereotypes about policing and analyze whether or not the way police to society interactions are perceived maintain that social conditioning she talks about. The author of the cop piece collects his data by reflecting upon his past experiences and sharing stories of things he felt and encountered while on the job. This certainly sounds like the author is using autoethnography, because he is using his own personal experiences in order to attempt to draw conclusions about police and society. Using these experiences, he can better position them within the societal context at the time period, and his connection to what he is researching could cause for greater precision and care when it comes to analysis. You could also argue that critical ethnography may be an effective methodology to employ, because the relationship being studied is one of cop to citizen or cop to society, and the clear power dynamic that exists between those two parties would allow for social inequity to be studied. As far as rigors go, I think prolonged duration of data collection would apply, because he is pulling from years of experience to try and gain a better understanding. I also think that a discussion of his values and beliefs would be necessary, because as a cop, he likely has certain biases, opinions, or prior knowledge that could affect the study. Lastly, identifying ways that the research can be understood to have multiple meanings or outcomes is important, because his experiences are not necessarily what everyone else experiences, and to draw one universal truth from his study would be ineffective.
The purpose of the Pedagogy piece would be to understand and learn more about digital research, and it is attempting to explore the world of computer and compositional research methods. These researchers used the interview study method, and collected their data by talking with the coauthors of the article. They may have also used the narrative inquiry method, because they told Gorjana’s story and her narrative helped inform what they studied and why they studied it. The two students and coauthors would have used autoethnography, because they are pulling from their life experiences in order to gain a better contextual understanding of digital research. One rigor involved here could be the integration of info from multiple data points, as they are discussing the lives of two different people. Similar to the cop piece, a potential rigor could be addressing how the students’ personal values and beliefs influence the study, or whether or not their experiences lend themselves to interpreting this information on a broader scale. Also, with any interview, it is important to note that there could be some subjectivity issues, issues with leading questions, or problems with the interviewers ‘ opinions influencing the questions or answers.

Michael Abreu

9/28/2020 07:56:09 pm

Both of the pieces for this Monday were very interesting and both similar in a way. The piece about pedagogy is intriguing. Looking at how this digital world has taken over school and how we evaluate learning is interesting. Look at the world we live in now, we learn through zoom. To me the question here is, how do we see the impact that the digital world has on the way teachers teach and how students learn. Here students are asked for feedback via written responses. They also wrote autobiographically essays in which they traced digital media. In a way this kind of reminds me of a survey format to get answers to the research problems. This research is more featured on a case by case basis by each person that wrote back about an autobiographical essay. To me these relate the most to Case Studies. And the answers via this written work give the researchers the answers they want regarding digital media.

The second piece was more of a narrative story following the life of a cop. This form of research looks at one person life and how they observe others lives. This falls most under the narrative inquiry type of research. The unit of analysis here is how the cop views his job and the people that he's encountered through being a cop. An example of this is mentioned when he states that he sees how residents in neighborhoods view in a positive and negative light based on the area. The research results are are taken from the narrative. Based on the story you can draw conclusions on how you view others or even communities. In this case even how one can view being a cop and the conclusions that they can draw from that.

Sam Isom

9/29/2020 06:24:39 pm

"Globalism and Multimodality in a Digitized World" by Gail E. Hawisher and Cynthia L. Selfe focuses, obviously, on pedagogy, particularly in relation to pedagogy on a mass scale. It relates to current day by posing the question of how the introduction of technology has affected teaching environments. The research question for this article could possibly be What role does technology play in pedagogy? Hawisher and Selfe use the interview study method in order to gather their information. They establish the answer to their question through this method, and also through a phenomenological study. By asking students about their experiences, the researchers are able to evaluate the answer to their question in a way that does not make assumptions about an experience they are not part of as first hand as contemporary students are.

"Cop Diary" by Marcus Laffey offers a look through the eyes of an officer. The research question here could be something along the lines of How does the behavior of suspects align with the crime they are accused of? Laffey identifies the physical appearance and actions of suspects he deals with as an officer, aligning the green eyed man on cocaine with being a rapist and domestic abuser. This article fits with the case study method of research, as Laffey goes case by case with each crime to arrest the correct suspect. That leads to the answer to his question, of how each suspect could be linked to the crime. That is the ultimate question in order to make the correct arrest.

Sasha Rockwell

10/1/2020 01:51:46 pm

I think in Globalism and Multimodality in a Digitalized World, Bhattacharya would consider the research question to be: Where does technology stand in pedagogy? How do we teach with technology? They conducted their research by talking to students who were going to their own respective universities, but were connected online, and not in the country of their university. The two methods that they used for research were interviews, conducted online, and essays on digital media. A large portion of the research was done orally in both cases, despite using technology. Both research methods are used to answer the research question on a personal level for the students. The students were writing autobiographical essays about their own personal life experiences with technology, and learning to become computer literate in a digital age. This was used to inform the researchers on digital media and how teaching is involved in technology.

The second reading we had was in the perspective of a cop. The research question could be: How do criminals behavior relate to the crimes they've been accused of? Marcus Laffey finds a rapist and immediately by the looks of the scrawny man, he can tell that he is the one because of the cocaine. He associated his crime with his physical appearance and his behavior. The type of research associated with this was case studies because the cop is using behavior and appearance of people to discover their crimes. Like a case study, it was predetermined what the scope of the study was, because the cop knew what he was looking for. This is how he ties criminals to their crimes. The cop also uses information from crime scenes and gathers evidence before linking a person to a crime. Like for the case of the old man who died in his apartment. He draws on his evidence in his apartment to figure out what kind of person the old man was, and who committed the crime.

Reading Journal #3: Public vs Academic

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