End of Summer Thoughts

. The summer flew by quickly and it felt like everday brought new challenges. I've spent the summer with my nose in text books and my laptop on my desk. (It does feel good to be a student, but it is a bit tiring). Last night I was reflecting on everything I have learned and it seemed surprising that I could have come so far in only 10 weeks. I've learned to question my assumptions, determine my motivation for a subject matter, ask questions, and speak up and ask for clarification during class. I've learned who some of the primary figures in the TC field are and I've read some amazing essays. I've learned about the Techrhet list. I've learned to be more sensitive to participants in any studies I might try to conduct. I've also learned about the importance of protecting participants privacy, calling them participants and not subjects, and to go through the IRB process if I ever hope to be published!

Atlas vs. Nvivo

I've spent a few days trying to 1) Learn Atlas and 2) get Nvivo to work. I was successful in one and failed miserably at the other. I can see huge benefits in learning Atlas; I just have to be patient with the learning curve. It's frustrating sometimes to learn new things and I tend to try to rush through them. I'm thankful my experience over the past couple of years have taught me to be open to new software programs. I think, too, that I have also learned to have more patience. :)

I've noticed that while Atlas is a useful tool, it is still primarily the researcher's responsibility to analyze and provide observations based upon the data. The program can't do the "real" thinking. It also seems that there are many ways to perform the same functions. This can be good if a user is very familiar with the program, but it could also be discouraging to a novice.

Since I couldn't get Nvivo to download more than 83% onto my laptop, I did research to see what the program was like. It appears that Nvivo allows for audio and video analysis, something that I don't think Atlas.ti can do. If I was interested in studying video data, I might decide to use Nvivo over Atlas.ti.

Reflections on Research Experiences

I've rather enjoyed my experiences with Atlas.ti. I hadn't known that programs like this existed, but I can definitely see the usefulness. I had a hard time getting used to this program and it seems like the formatting is vitally important in order to import the documents. I like the easy process for coding. I can really see the usefulness of this product for myself over the next couple of years while I finish my grad degree. I'm very interested in my paper topic and I'd like to start putting in research as I find it so that I can be prepared for the final dissertation.

Applebee's Case Study

I dropped off the questionnaires at Applebee's and am keeping my fingers crossed for some good results. My question is this, what do researchers do if their case study fails? I'm sure I will get some feedback, but I'm not sure of the quantity. While I'm waiting to pick up the completed forms, I've been doing more case study research and am trying to read as much literature as possible on the researching fields. I must say, I had no idea so much was involved in putting together a case study and a subsequent research paper. This is like nothing I've ever done before. With that said, I am finding the process supremely enlightening and am very excited that I now have the tools to write scholarly papers. I'm having daydreams of becoming published someday.... :)

Research Status

I've spent a lot of time this past week performing additional research for my project. My main problem still seems to be narrowing down the topic so I can sufficiently handle examining all the issues. I've narrowed down my methods to a lit review and a case study. I have a million ideas on the food industry and digital technology, but for now I must focus on one aspect and that will be the case study of Applebee's. I've made preliminary steps in using them for research and hopefully it will all come together. This summer has been full of so many ups and downs, but I have faith it will come togher.

Pros and Cons about case studies and technology

While there are pros and cons regarding case studies and technology, I think the pros far outweigh the cons. A few cons I can think of are:

- Individuals use technology in so many different ways, it may be hard to compare case studies
- It can be difficult to perform similiar case studies on different age groups; certain age groups may be opposed to new technology
- Case studies are more time consuming and it can be difficult to get technical people to 'volunteer' their time
- Especially in the case studies of text-messaging use, the results may not be wholly accurate because participants may have withheld those messages that contained very personal information

A few pros I can think of are:

- Researchers are performing up-to-date and relevant research in the area of technology and cultural use
- While case studies may not be comparable, this very fact can illustrate the importance of using case studies and technology
- It may be easier to gather data since every call, message, or text that is sent or received is time stamped and logged
- Since data is logged, vast amounts of information is available to the researcher which could provide a more comprehensive analysis
- Studies on how individuals use technology can be helpful to those companies that are creating new technologies

I really enjoyed tonight's reading. I thought the chosen case studies were informative and entertaining. I did have a question on Chapter 6: Sophie's Story. On page 191, the author states that "She was interviewed again in May 2004 to make her data comparable to the other participants' data." What exactly does this mean? Sophie had been interviwed in March and April 2003. How would an interview a year later make the data more comparable? Did the researcher 'update' the original results?

A point that I really liked is found on page 216. After the case studies were described and analyzed the author pointed out a major difference: "One of the major differences between the rhetorical purposes of American text messages and Chinese text messages is that American particpants texted more for expressing purposes and Chinese participants texted more for informing purposes." I really liked that she explained this main difference. I felt that it effectively summarized some of her research results and observations.

Response to Tonight's Reading

There were a couple of interesting comments in Sun's article for tonight and I would like some clarification if possible. She discusses her case study approach to gathering information and discusses how she examined the patterns. She says, "cases with interesting patterns of use were selected to bear futher exploration using methods of qualitative interviewing..." How did she determine the "interesting patterns." Is this a case of researcher bias? And, if not, then how did she ensure that she didn't unknowingly bias the study based upon her own personal interests? The second comment I found interesting was: "Particpants were offered payment for their work based on the local hourly rate.: I did not know that researchers were allowed to pay for research. Did this present a bias as well? How could she ensure she got an accurate sample of participants. Upon finishing reading the methods chapter, I did notice that she took a lot of time to explain how she tried to recruit other types of people beyond the college age and that it was rather difficult. It doesn't seem that an hourly rate would be enough of an incentive to get young professionals to participate. How would a researcher reach an older group that did not feel like volunteering their time and energy? I can see why there would be hesitation here on the participants part. How does the researcher bypass this?

Research Reflection

This morning I'm finalizing my Annotated Bibliography and I find myself constantly questioning my sources and my criteria for good sources. Are they informative, sholarly, and relevant to my research? Will they help me answer my question or are they opening up too many possibilities to be covered in a Summer course?

I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed narrowing down my topic. I narrowed it to just technical innovations occuring in restaurants in America, but that still leave a lot of room for study and analysis. I was thinking if my case study on Applebee's fell through, I could analyze this website I found for Arby's at www.arbysrescuebrigade.com. It's a website dedicated to changing the face of fast food. It's pretty interesting to me how restaurants like Arby's have decided to use social networking via MySpace or Facebook to garner more interest in their food.