Reading Response (Week 9)

This week's G & C chapter 8 talks about interviewing. It is relevant to me because my project involves interviews. During reading this chapter, I wrote down any ideas coming up in my mind on my "qualitative research notebook."

I decide not to take notes during the interview. Because I am not a native English speaker, what I hear will need to be translated to my language in my mind for understanding. If I take notes during the interview, my concentration on the participants will be distracted. I think the better way for me is to take notes immediate after the interview session is over.

I plan to carry out my first pilot study next week, so I also read the Silver's chapter 4. It also talks about the interviews. The other concern mentioned in Silver's book for interviewing is that: we have to be careful about the "voice and experience" issues (Silver, p. 114-116). This issue causes problems if the researcher directly sees what the participants said as the facts or experiences they actually have. Sometimes it is hard to know participants' retrospective account is what it was really like.

This issue reminds me the importance of "triangulation" or "multiple methods" to enhance the credibility of the data. G & C p. 129 mentioned the other way to enhance credibility related to interview technique: to interview a number of different people in different organizational positions (if the site is in a particular organization), and the cridibility of data you gathered is enhanced if it can be confirmed from several sources.

In my project, I also take the same principle into consideration. I try to involve several data collecting methods: observation, questionnaire, interview, and screen mouse activities recording to enhance the credibility. But at fist, seeking for similarities among the data collected by different ways is not my goal. The purpose of the usability testing is trying to find problems. Even though I always got different opinions from participants, I am still successful on the purpose of "understanding the topic." Especially in the stage of pilot testing, I will keep open mind and expect for the diversity emerges.

Reading Response (Week 8)

Silver's Chapter 10:
This chapter talks about suggestions for writing the research paper. After reading it, I was encouraged somehow. The most valued tip for me is that "Do not put off writing; write as you go." This tip is also mentioned by Dr. Shulman in the class.

The case study illustrated in p.337 gives a good example demontrating the benefit of "writing as you go" which is to help to clarify the research ideas. Something wrong only can be realized when conducting the actual writing.

"If you delay your writing, you are asking for trouble (p.344)."

G & C's Chpater 9:
This chapter talks about two group discussion techniques, focus group and NGT.
Focus group is one of the most common-used techniques in usability testing. Because people might bring up different opinions when coversing with others, it is usually the complement to the individual interviews. Focus group is also seen as a good avenue to obtain suggestions and information for define the research focus or for the questionnaire/protocol design in the preliminary stage.

I decide to conduct the pilot study first and then decide whether to use focus in my project.

Project Progress (Week 8)

Because of the three mid-term exams for the last week and this week, the progress of my project totally slowed down. I already had a big all-over picture for my final paper but have not started the data collection. It has been the eighth week, I feel a little bit nervous. I plan to at least do the pilot study by the end of the spring break.