Saturday, July 18, 2009

Here we go

Scenario: you have a month of the semester remaining, and you have a two-and-a-half papers left to write. You pretty much know what you're going to write about for all three of these, but you don't feel like you have had a decent start. You have no idea how it's all going to get done, but somehow you know it will. It must. Or else. What do you do?

Write my flippin' assets off.

That's where I am right about now. The only really scary part is that "spring break" is happening next week (i.e., our vacation), and I cannot bring the laptop with me.

Today I'm in the library with two friends from SCT. We're all cranking out pages. Should be good writing energy together before a fun dinner with our families later on. Not such a bad Saturday, that is, if one must be locked in a library on a weekend.

Bye.

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Assurance of Trustworthiness

Today is my dissertation day. I think it's the first Wednesday I've had without any other work-related commitments since May. Today has been very productive.

One method of assuring trustworthiness in my data analysis is to check in with the participants and seek their feedback on a part of the data analysis. In the case of my study, I wanted to make sure my main description of their work and their future aspirations was accurate. This is called a "member check."

I've been dreading this process due to the time it has taken me to analyze the interviews and write up the summaries. It's been just over two years since I conducted the first interview, and I honestly don't know if my contact information for the participants is still accurate or not. Fortunately Facebook has been a big help with this process, so yay for modern communication. I know I've written about this up here in the past.

Well, now that I finished Chapter 4, or the write-up of participants (did I MENTION I finished Chapter 4?), it was high time to get back in touch with the participants. I finally went ahead and contacted them, and I shared with each his or her interview summary. I did not share any of my reactions. Just my overall summary of the interview.

Glad that's over!

One has already responded, so I hope a few others follow suit soon. I don't expect to hear from all of them, but somewhere around half be nice.

Onto write a few more pages of Chapter 5 now. Deep breath. Trying to stay awake in the mid-afternoon is always a challenge for me.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Summer Crunch - Day 6 Report

It's good to be home.

Honestly, I didn't get much done today on the dissertation. I moved home from the hotel, unpacked a few things, and then worked in the garden a bit. I needed that.

The net effect of this time away from work and family is very exciting, in my opinion. I made a TON of progress. I'm now right in the middle of one of the more complex chapters, and I'm comfortable living with the complexity for a while. I'm also very, very motivated to finish up everything. Heck, I may even write up another code or two here before going to bed.

At this point, if I can keep plugging away on things in the evenings, weekends, and my regular day off of work during the week, then it's quite likely these chapters will be written by the end of August. They'll SUCK, but they'll be written!