Were there points when the group played a role in keeping you engaged when you might otherwise have disengaged?
This question really resonates with me, and perhaps in ways that it might not with the others in the group. There are times when I find qualitative analysis quite boring. I love interviewing participants, I enjoy writing up results . . .but coding? . . . analysis of the data? Hard pass.
But it has to be done.
I find it to be just as much fun as naval gazing or watching paint dry. I can sit and work on data in a spreadsheet all day. I can try and figure out SPSS and which quantitative test to run, and what it might prove, etc etc. But ask me to think about qualitative interviews and analysis, and my eyes glaze over quite quickly.
This is why it was great to have Will and Andrew (and yes, at times Anne, . . although even she'll admit that Will and Andrew have the market cornered in terms of qualitative expertise) in the group. Will and Andrew didn't just bring their own views and thoughts to the group, but they brought their immediate expertise. There were many times that I felt as though having them in the group was like having another professor in our group for private tutorials.
Still, it was more than just expertise, . . . or perhaps it was downstream of . . . or because of their expertise, but they also brought an enthusiasm to the discussions around qualitative subjects that I would never have been able to find if they were not there. Alone, I would have shrugged off qualitative research as gobbledy-gook and hoi-polloi (excuse my French). But because of them . . . and then eventually Anne settling on qualitative research as a focus for her dissertation, I was able to find, if not a love for qualitative research, then certainly an appreciateion for it that I wouldn't have had without our little study group.
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