RM11: Reflecting on my Semester of Research

Wow! What a semester! I have learned so much in this course about qualitative research, and I must admit that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Being also involved in a qualitative research study this semester, I have found that I enjoy the flexibility and the naturalistic qualities of qualitative research much better. I am pleased to say that I were to participate in more research in my career in this field, I know I could now do either qualitative or quantitative.  I believe there are advantages and disadvantages to both, and I honestly have trouble picking a favorite. Discussing experiences and collecting life stories and memories from participants was extremely interesting, and I have a lot of fun doing this throughout the semester. However, I do like that in quantitative research, the data is more generalizable, which somehow correlates to “meaningful” to me for some reason.

In researching the high students with cochlear implants this semester, I have learned so much. I had a presupposition about the results I would obtain, and although I am correct in what I found, there is a lot more to it that I had thought. Before beginning my research, I had anticipated that students with cochlear implants in the high school struggled less than the deaf students without the cochlear implant. Although this proved to be correct in the cases that I looked at, the social aspect of high school is still an issue for these students, and is something I really hadn’t given much thought to previously. I learned a lot about the challenges they face, their struggles with identity, and the importance of a strong family support system for these students. At the end of my study, I was so inspired by these students and their contentment and resiliency to their impairment, and I am eager to continue researching this population in grad school next fall.

RM 10: Revisions, Revisions, & More Revisions

      By having the opportunity revise 2 of my classmates’ papers gave me insight to my own paper about flow and content. I noticed how both of my peers had sectioned off their papers with subtitles, making the flow of the paper much more readable. I also learned a lot about the content to include in each section. Others were very detailed and made me realize that my content may be too vague. When writing the first draft, I was writing it as if my reader was already familiar with my research and neglected to include some very key information regarding my interviewees, interview questions, etc.

      This past week, I have continued to add detail to my paper and began to draw meaning from the study as a whole.  In writing my meaning, I had some trouble re-writing my initial research question in a fashion that would be answered by the data I collected. I have concluded that the four themes that I discovered are very much entwined, and it’s a bit of a challenge to me to explain it suitably in my paper.  I began to introduce to possible future research questions and have focused a lot on the implications of my findings to our field, keeping in mind that these qualitative results should not be generalized to the entire population.

RM9: Finding Connections in my Themes

The themes I found amongst my code words were (1) Struggles (2) Resiliency (3) Academics (4) Socialization and (5) Identity. At first I had “emotion” and “struggle,” but realized that most of the code words under the emotion category dealt strongly with the struggles (i.e. frustration,worry, pessimistic, confusion, concern, embarrassment, etc.) After reading through my data for about the hundredth time, the theme of “identity” popped out  out of no where and I couldn’t believe that I haven’t seen it before. This them of identity ended up being one of my very strong points in my research and I am so glad I finally identified it.

In connecting these themes, I see that all of my interviews and observations showed these students’ struggle with finding and accepting their identity. This struggle with identity seems strongly  effect their socialization and academics. And eventually, I saw multiple acts of resiliency in finding and accepting their identity. It was really fascinating to me to analyze my data in this way, and I have really enjoyed the process of coding, theming, and making connections.

RM8: Coding

     I believe that I began “coding” long before actually going through the transcripts and writing down the code words. I think the process of coding starts as soon as you press play on your recorder and start the interview.  When listening to my interviewees’ tell their stories and share their experiences with me, I was already thinking about their “passion,” “sympathy,” “frustration,” etc.  “Coding” this way is definitely on a very subconscious level of thinking, but regardless, I was thinking these things. To me, that made the actual coding process fairly simple. It was much more deep and analytical, but as the interviewer, you have a big head start to the process just from being a part of the conversation and seeing their emotions as they spoke.

    The thesaurus has become my best friend throughout college, which has provided me with a fascinating ability to spontaneously recite multiple synonyms for any given word. Although this talent seems to come in handy when writing papers, for this particular project I was left with an extreme abundance of unnecessary synonyms on my coding list that I then had to fish out. But as Mrs. Mccomas would tell me, “too much is better than too little.”

    Also, after our discussion in class about personal characteristics showing through in our coding, I am afraid I must definitely fall into the category of “emotional.” I had very few nouns on my list, however I found it very easy to pick up on the emotions, passion, and feelings being portrayed or discussed in the interviews.

    Finding themes amongst the code words was a bit difficult. Like I mentioned before, many of my words fit under the “emotional” category or theme, and I had trouble sorting through it all and finding other themes. Doing this, however, really helped me to see my observations and interviews in a new light.

    I enjoyed seeing the code words that my classmate came up with after reading my transcripts. It’s sort of like when you lose your keys or your glasses. You look over the entire house 5 or 6 times and swear that they have been eaten by the mysterious couch cushion monster and are gone forever. But, just when you ask someone else for help, they immediately point out the glasses on your head or the keys dangling right in front of your face. By having others to take a look, they offer new insight to themes you have overlooked again and again.

RM7: Observation #1

    Because I had already observed these people in this setting last semester, I had a good idea of what I might see before I arrived to the school this time. I kept trying to recall things that happened last time to sort of prepare myself for this observation and even got out the “field notes” that I wrote last year to refresh my memory. Last time, I went in asking tons of questions to the teacher and the students with hearing impairments and carried on thorough conversations with them. However the objective of this observation was to simply observe and blend in as much as possible. I had trouble thinking about how to do this without seeming… like a snob! I didn’t want them to think I was sitting back there with my little pencil, watching their every move, making judgments about their speech, etc. So I guess you could say I was a little hesitant, even though I was familiar with the setting. When I arrived I attempted to explain that I was just here to observe the classroom, hoping to make them feel that I was not focusing on them individually.

    During the observation I noticed a lot more about the room and the relationship between the teachers and student. There was only one girl there this time; she has a cochlear implant and uses spoken language as her form of communication. Therefore, sign language was not used as heavily as it was previously with signing deaf students present. I think that by reading the articles and having the discussions in class about writing field notes and observing has definitely helped me to understand what is “important” to write down. I also made a conscious effort this time to LOOK UP from my notes more often and SEE what was happening, as opposed to my “Time for Music” observation earlier on in the semester.

    After the observation, I immediately wanted to go back! I love watching this population, and am very pleased to see a high school have a team of people so dedicated to helping this population in the school system. Leaving this observation, I had many ideas and light bulbs about things that could and should be studied within this setting and this population. And I must admit that at that moment I had to smile and give myself a mental pat on the back for finally thinking like a researcher.

RM6: My Experience as an Observer

Throughout the past 2 years of undergrad, I have had the experience of being an observer multiple times. In lab classes, we had very detailed forms that we had to fill out about our observations including questions about goals, clinical techniques, materials used, how they were used, client utterances, client behaviors, analysis of those behaviors, etc.  I feel like I am a very good note taker, and tend to write down too much information. Writing quickly and choosing what is important has always been something I have been good at. However, it is obviously much easier when you have a form in front of you telling you exactly what to look for and what to include in your fieldnotes, which made the observation of Time for Music last week a bit more difficult than what I am used to.

   In this situation I had choose for myself what should be considered important enough to write. So, I just wrote everything. The problem with that is, I missed a lot of important visual information having my head down writing the whole time. Particularly in this setting, it is very important to jot down what you SEE as well as what you HEAR. In typing my fieldnotes, I found myself often wishing I wrote down more about the actions rather than utterances; I believe this would have provided me with much more valuable information and helped me to draw conclusions better. I think that in the future, that is something I need to work on.

RM5- A Change in Direction & Why

        As most of you know, I am currently starting a quantitative study which explores the role of intention in language production for the aphasic client. For the purposes of this class however, I have been attempting to do qualitative work with the same population. Although aphasia is something that interests me quite a bit, I have been very hesitant to do this for a variety of reasons. In the back of my mind I have been really thinking about how interesting it would be to change my topic completely to relate somehow to deaf culture. The deaf world is something that has always interested me and even played a role in leading me to this profession in the first place. I have always read sign language books and have taken 2 courses during my college experience. Of the 60 hours of observations we participated in during undergrad, the ones that stand out and really made the greatest impression on me are the observations of the “L”. “Sound and Fury” is a movie about  the diversity between the hearing world and the deaf world and the controversial debate about the cochlear implant. I have seen this movie 3 times and  each time I feel very intrigued to get to know more about this population of people. I would love to eventually work with this population, possibly even doing auditory-verbal therapy like in the “L.”

       I understand that changing my topic this far in the game means I have a lot of catching up to do, but I am more than willing to do so. Changing my topic may even be out of the question, but I felt the need to share my concerns and throw the idea out there. In hopes that I can change my topic, I will address this research memo in regards to my new topic of deaf culture. As I mentioned before, deaf culture is something I’ve always been curious about. The more I learn about this population, the more I see that the deaf community is a very unique culture with extreme values and beliefs about their way of life. I am fascinated with the ongoing debate about the cochlear implant.

    Because of my background and study in the field of communication disorders, I of course feel that a parent should do everything in their power to allow their child to communicate effectively in all communicative contexts with a variety of partners and therefore am a firm advocate for cochlear implantation. On the other hand, I can see the point of view of the people in the deaf community and their reasons for protecting their culture by rejecting cochlear implants. My goals in doing this research are to gather stories, opinions, and experiences from parents who have experienced making decisions for their deaf child concerning communication. I could even relate this to literacy by gathering information about how deafness has affected literacy skills both emotionally and academically.

 An advantage to me for this study is access to the “L,” the Luke Lee Listening Language Learning Lab at Marshall.  It is a specialized program for deaf children whose families choose for their children to be oral communicators. I think the parents of the children in this program would have great stories and experiences to share with me to help me with my research. Interviews would be easy to conduct, and I have the privilege of gaining insightful information from other professionals and experts in the area of our field. Because I have a strong opinion on this topic already, it could be a potential disadvantage for my research in that I could insert my own personal bias/ opinions into the data analysis. 

I am extremely excited about this research topic and honestly can’t wait to start my interviewing. I am currently searching for similar studies on the internet to get a feel for what is out there already and ideas to guide my own research.

RM4- Painting Finger Nails

I have been sitting here staring at the screen trying to remember a positive learning experience related to academics, and I have come to the realization that this did not really happen for me until college. Although I obviously learned many life lessons in high school through both good and bad experiences, I do not consider any moment worth writing about that really shaped my learning experience academically until I began my path to pursue a degree in communication disorders. In middle school and high school, I was always a good student. I almost always made straight A’s, a couple B’s here and there, but put no genuine effort into getting those grades; It has just always come very naturally to me. I am the type of learner that really soaks it up in class, takes extremely neat (almost obsessive compulsively neat) notes, and can remember while taking a test what color highlighter I used on the terms the questions are asking me to recall. Upon entering college, I soon realized that just listening in class wasn’t going to cut it in the CD Department at Marshall, and expanded my study habits quite dramatically. The professors in this program have pushed me intellectually, and I am at the point where I can say I am extremely  grateful for this. Although I will admit that there have been many nights where I have wanted to do nothing less than read another textbook and mornings where I thought I was going to shoot my alarm clock if the snooze button went off one more time, I am such a better person now for pushing through those times. I have grown up so much in college and have learned that sometimes there are responsibilities in life that force you to “just keep swimming” as Dori from Finding Nemo oh so intellectually stated. As I paid my diploma fee and sent off my graduate application a couple weeks ago, it so incredible to realize that this crazy ride was worth every sleepless night and groggy morning.

Anyway, to tell an actual story of a very positive learning experience, I will share with you a mission trip I took my sophomore year of high school to the Dominican Republic with my church through SCORE International. I absolutely consider this trip to be the most life-changing experience I have ever encountered. Before leaving, I remember watching these videos about the poverty in this country and feeling so heart-broken for these people who had to endure this way of life in a third world country. I spent those 2 weeks visiting an orphanage for disadvantaged children, putting on puppet shows and a vacation bible school, presenting the gospel to the capital city through tracks, and cooking meals for local villages. I became close with a particular group of girls and remember how excited they were to see my red nail polish. This may seem like a silly part of my trip to share, but it really touched my heart. The very next morning I walked to Jumbo, (the spanish version of Wal-mart) and bought all the red nail polish I could find, and spent the rest of the days painting nails.  These children had never had this privilege and were so thrilled; They kept saying they felt like “famosas personas” or “famous people.” Their parents worked hard just to provide food and shelter and would never have extra money for something like nail polish.

But honestly, what shocked me most about the people of this village wasn’t how poor they were or how many lived under tarps and wore the same clothes everyday, but what shocked me the most was the joy they had. At a church service, I can’t explain the way I felt when I heard the familiar tune of Amazing Grace being sang in a language I couldn’t quite understand. It was the same great God, no matter what the culture, language, race.. I saw that none of that matters. These people had nothing, and yet they had everything. The trip as a whole made me feel so blessed, yet so selfish and greedy and awful about the way I was living. Sometimes I get caught up in life and forget about this trip and the lessons I learned in the DR. I forget of Daniella and her mother who invited me in their home and wept tears of joy because she was so thankful for the food we brought them. I began that trip feeling sorry for them, and left feeling so sorry for myself and America for losing touch with the important things in life.

In regards to my research study, I plan to make use of the Aphasic clients and their caregivers here at MUSHC. The caregivers could provide stories through interviews about the clients and lend very valuable information to my study.

RM3: Attempting Qualitative Research

In my independent study course, my mentor and I are studying the work and research done by Dr. Bruce Crosson and his colleagues concerning a newly developed type of treatment for chronic nonfluent aphasic clients. We are interested in replicating his research which suggests that it is possible to prime the right hemisphere in individuals with left hemispheric damage for initiation of language production, (which is typically a role of the left hemisphere), through the use of non-symbolic movements of the non-dominant hand. Although I’m very excited about this research, I have had a difficult time figuring out how to do this qualitatively for the purposes of this class.

What Mrs. Horne and I will be doing falls under quantitative research, in that we will likely be focusing on collecting and analyzing data, and  explaining our observations statistically in hopes of gaining insight about the effectiveness of this new treatment. However, I know that I am equally, if not more, interested in exploring the attitudes and opinions of the aphasic clients in which we are researching and understanding their interpretation of their situation, which would then qualify my study as qualitative research.  This is, very roughly, where I intend to go with the research project for this class. I would love to better understand their stories and opinions, and I think that this could really benefit the quantitative research being done for aphasia rehabilitation. Some potential research questions I have come up with are:

1. How does aphasia effect a person’s quality of life?

2. How does the aphasic client feel about their experiences and relationships with their clinicians in therapy?

3. How does a person with aphasia feel about the rehabilitation process? (For this question, I am interested in finding out how it makes them feel to be re-learning a skill they had pre-stroke; I am interested in learning about motivation & frustration associated with treatment for this population)

4. What are most people with aphasia most interested/ motivated to work on in therapy?

5. How have their personal lives changed due to their disorder?/ What bothers them most about having aphasia?

RM2- My History as a Scholar

In May I will be the first woman on both my mother and father’s side of the family to receive any type of college degree. My mother began college after completing high school, but soon dropped out when she became pregnant with me due to the urgent need for more income to support herself and a baby. The responsibility of receiving an education fell on my father, who ended up getting an associates degree to become an X-ray Technician. My father grew up in a very rough family situation, and I have always been really proud of him for this achievement. Since graduating, he has always took every opportunity to educate himself further and receive extra certifications to allow himself to move up in his field. He has always been the one pushing me very hard to do well in school to allow me to have these same opportunities.  I have always felt very guilty about my mother quitting school, and to this day I still  wish she would go back. However, when the topic is brought up, she expresses that she feels it is too late and she has learned to be content at the job she has been at for 20+ years, in which there is no opportunity in moving up in position or salary.

My parents are both extremely admirable, hard-working people; They have always done whatever necessary to provide for my sister and I. Being the oldest child, however, I can remember times when things were pretty rough for us, whereas my younger sister who came 8 years later has never known what it was like to struggle. I knew at an early age that getting a college degree was in my future and have always been very focused on creating a good future for myself. I basically entered college wanting to make money, and that was it. It wasn’t until my dad sat down and explained the importance of picking something I loved to do that I began really researching my options. I knew I wanted to be in some sort of helping profession, and started out taking nursing courses. I also babysat for a speech-language pathologist named Julie who told me about the profession and graduated from Marshall. I knew immediately that this was a perfect match for me and was ready for the challenge. To this day I am so grateful that I have found this profession and know that I will always love my job being an SLP.