More and More

To continue the Evershade series (see HERE) I now offer these!

First, another simple and quickie, from Purple. Similar to the simple ones from before.

want to hold on . . .

BUT . . 

 . . . will let go

Flexibility While Changing

Every week in this Qualitative Research class we have to write reflective summations about that week's readings. This week, with the Anzaldua reading and the postivism reading, I really thought a lot of what we read about was about flexibility and change. 

What I noticed when reviewing this section and the readings and more specifically my comments in these discussions is that "change" and being "flexible" was very much a touchstone of all my comments.

 Although there were aspects of change in all of our reading, and there were aspects of flexibility, I also wonder to what degree I'm reading those things into the passages, or looking at the readings through the lens of change and flexibility. I wonder if factors in my life are encouraging me to look at the passages from the lenses. 

If this is the case, how do my own perspectives and the things I'm going through in life affect, or how will they affect my reading of any results from my qualitative research studies. If changed and flexibility is foremost in my mind and I read passages with that lens in place, what lens will be in place when I analyze my results? How can I ensure that I'm reading the results without a lens so that the reading is as unbiased as possible? Or should we have a bias and allow them to help us read the data. 

Humor for Supervisors

When I found out my boss's name was "Ellsworth", one of the few that is worse than my middle name, I had to use it in some way for the leadership blog I started at the old company. I ran across the post the other day and man I really enjoyed writing it. 

I don't know why I did it, but i cracked me up. Humor to bond people together, to poke fun, to make light, is not always easy. 

Liz was another VP at the company and Brad's wife. I tried to include as many of the leaders of the company I knew, and there's a lot of inside baseball stuff. Slicker suits, face shields heat exchangers. I think I hit the right tone. I wrote three posts like this. I liked this one the most. Not sure were "kiss the pigs" came from. I'm glad Betsy seemed to like em.

More Reviews

 So, last week I posted about a stellar review (see HERE), this week I decided to catch up on a few more. First, let me say that someone reading your book and saying that it would make a great movie is a huge feeling of accomplishment. Secondly, when someone reads your book and disects it in ways that even the author didn't know he could, it's a great rush!

More Reviews

 So, last week I posted about a stellar review (see HERE), this week I decided to catch up on a few more. First, let me say that someone reading your book and saying that it would make a great movie is a huge feeling of accomplishment. Secondly, when someone reads your book and disects it in ways that even the author didn't know he could, it's a great rush!

Qualitative Infographic

I've always been a huge fan of infographics if only because they provide a ton of information very quickly, but also they show relationships. So in just one quick image you can not only see relationships but also definitions, and hopefully from that more understanding. 

 

As a novice to qualitative research I struggle not just with the new terminology but also with how the different terms and research types work with one another. So I was a huge fan of htis graphic that hte professor provided that was created by two others from a previous class. 

The professor discussed it like this:

Brent Anders was in a 838 class several years ago, who organized his thoughts into this infographic included below.  You are not required to post here, but we, the Qualitative Programming faculty, thought we would give you the opportunity to make comments, ask questions, etc.  So the forum is open, but you can simply move on if you would like. 

Overall, I love it and it's not only getting printed, but being put onto my wall so I can reference it. 

Not My Fave; But I Can Learn Something

Today's assignment was to provide one sentence reviews of a poets bio and writing. Her name is Anzaldua. Personally I find her a bit of a provocateur, and someone who is deliberately outrageous. But knowing that the question becomes, why is she. What is she trying to do by being so deliberately provocative.

One sentence I'm specifically thinking of is when she describes getting a hysterectomy at a young age and describes it as:

Last March my fibroids conspired with an intestinal tract infection and spawned watermelons in my uterus. The doctor played with is knife. La Chingada ripped open, raped with the white man's wand. 

I'm not a deliberately provactive person. If I was writing that I would have expressed it much differently . So then the question becomes, why? What's the purpose. My answers to the prompts are below:

In one sentence only, summarize what you believe to be the most salient and important points that Anzaldua is trying to make. 

Change, can't be stopped even when you want it to, or if it's detrimental to your journey; it is always present and never ceases. 

In one sentence only, state how you think the sentence you posted might relate to your potential research, or research you have been interested in.  

I need to understand that what I'm hoping to find through my research and what I might find may not be the same and may be detrimental to my work; but that's okay. 

The Father of Positivism

For today's discussion we were asked to reflect on postivism and our text on Foundations of Social Research (see here). Specificaly we were asked to take two passages and reflect on them and discuss what they might mean to us. 

"The kind of social reorganization Comte envisages requires the human mind to function at it's very best. This, he feels can happen only when all have embraced one scientific method. 

True enough, there is no one general law obtaining in all the sciences to give them substantive unity. Comte is no reductionist. Nevertheless, there is universality of method that can unify the practice of science. The scientific method he has in mind is the method emanation from positivism. Not that it is a uniform method to be woodenly applied. Rather, it is a flexible method that succeeds in remaining homogenous in a multitude of contexts" (Crotty, 1998, p. 21).

It's that last sentence that really grabs me. I like the idea of a fluid, and dynamic method that adapts and changes to the needs of the society. The problem is htat the paragraph starts with a sentence that states "he feels can happen only when all have embraced one scientific method." Either he's giving himself an out by front-loading the fact that this ubiquitousness is impossible since not one method can be embraced by all, or it's flexible enough a method where it can always be applied and never not be accepted by all because of it's flexibility.

"There is a chasm between what science purports to do and what it actually does. For all the positivist concern that statements be verified by observation before being accepted as meaningful, a host of elaborate scientific theories have emerged whose development clearly requires the acceptance of much more than direct conclusions from sense-data. Many of the so-called facts that serve as elements of these theories are not directly observed at all. Instead they have been quite purposefully contrived and introduced as mere heuristics and explanatory devices" (Crotty, 1998, p. 30).

This is inline with the first paragraph I quoted that discussed flexibility.  Although there are "woodenly accepted" aspects of positivism, there is still enough flexibility to allow for others who have not had, or do not accept the direct conclusions from sense-data to incorporate them as well.

References

Crotty, M. (1998). Foundations of social research: Meaning and perspective in the research process. Allen & Unwin.

Reading and an Interview with My Professor

 This week our assignment was to watch and review a What's Hot and What's Not video between Dr. Battacharya and Dr. Liang. This is intriguing on many levels if only becasue I'm reading Dr. Battacharya's book (see here) and taking a class by Dr. Liang right now. 

What I really liked about the what's hot and what's not with Dr. Liang this week was the advice she gives at the end. 

I thought Dr. Liang expressed that reason for a foundational understanding of qualitative research and how just because quantitative is far more structured and strict, that doesn't mean that qualitative research methods can be too loose and freeform. 

I'm beginning to understand that qualitative research takes more individual attributes into account about the subjects who are being tested, but that there seem to be distinct measurement criteria as well. It's important to put the work into the research design to be sure that you are getting quality answers to your questions so that it's verifiable, valid and the reader can trust the research. I'm reminded of the database project manager maxim, "garbage in/garbage out." Meaning that if you want to get good data out of your database, be sure you're putting good data in. It seems that the same thing goes for qualitative research. 

Chaos Theory and Autopoeisis

Lately I was asked in a class discussion how I would explain the relationship between autopoiesis and the theories of chaos and complexity? To be sure it's a tough question. 

Chaos theory is something most people might be familiar with, but not so much autopoeisis. According to Wikipedia "the term autopoiesis refers to a system capable of reproducing and maintaining itself by creating its own parts and eventually further components."

When reading Morgan (2006) and considering autopoiesis, and the theories of chaos and complexity, there were several lines that I noted but the most relevant to chaos and complexity is when Morgan discusses what Goldstein notes with "much of the literature on organizational change has focused on the problem of "resistance," instead of focusing on how new "attractors" can "pull" the latent energies of a system to a point where then can organize into a new form" (p. 259). This reminds me of people or leaders who have entered into organizations who pull the organization in new directions. I'm reminded of a new lieutenant who came into our platoon when I was an Army team leader. He had been in the military for more than 10 years, and had experience everything everyone in our platoon wanted out of their own careers. Most of the platoon mimicked everything he did, to the point that everyone started to wear Chuck Taylor Converse High Top shoes in combatives training because that was what he wore. 

Then there is this; "innovations create the basis for their own downfall" (Morgan, 2006, p. 285). This is a factor that my organization is grappling with right now. Our competitors have changed the standard for training course development within our industry. Now, we are being asked to meet that new standard. We are ramping the team up to that point where we can be competitive, but now our own members and clients are demanding that same level of course development. This is a standard that will be hard to maintain in the long term.

This is a perfect example of where these two quotes have merged to create a problem. A new competitor has created an attractor event that is new course development standards and through that innovation they have started to lose market share to other competitors in the market who are now trying to meet that new standard. 

References

Morgan, G. (2006). Images of organizations (updated edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.