Fascination!

I started my interviews this week for my research and have so far conducted 9 with students and 2 with staff.  I have to say the transcribing is hard; time-consuming as my reading had warned me it would be, but especially challenging as my first transcription was of a student who has English as a second language.  She is extremely articulate but I found her phrases hard to remember in the moments between listening and writing.  My second transcription was one of the longest interviews so it took a while, but by the end I could almost predict and/or recall what was coming at times.  It still took about 4 hours.

However; it has been fascinating to have the opportunity to listen to what they all have to say.  I realised that we all spend so much time ‘doing’ or ‘teaching’ class but we never spend time discussing ‘how’ (yes, I am back to how again) we are doing class and I have gained so much from this insight, and the interviewees have said that they too have benefitted BUT…..

At the end of each interview each interviewee, including the 2 staff members, stayed to chat – mostly with the students about personal matters as they do not have much access to me during usual college time, but in some cases to discuss their learning and that they did not realise how much they use imagery and that they would probably work differently now.  I have to note that it was lovely; rewarding, but a little bit frustrating, as I could not capture it as it was unexpected and informal, and I feel that the interviews are perhaps not going to truly represent the whole experience.  I suppose I could arrange further interviews so I can document the ‘endings’ but with the limited time I have and the amount of hours the interviews I have already recorded are taking to transcribe this is not realistically achievable. It would also not be spontaneous, which could skew the data collection.

It’s also really fascinated me to reflect on how differently each person communicates.  In addition to the odd interview which contained my pet hate ‘LIKE’ inserted into speech like pepper spraying randomly over the supper, I have experienced precise, neat responses from a particularly precise, neat student, moments of fantastic insight and moments of confused answers which contradict themselves.  ‘I don’t know’ immediately followed by a clear response was the order of the day in one interview, which did actually reflect the nature of the student, in terms of a predisposition to be a little difficult and over-confident, along with the constant reference to self, which was not a surprise, more confirmation of their personality.  One interviewee was amazingly clear about how they learn and what they need in order to learn.  I know this and work well with her in class so this was no surprise. What was a surprise was realising that I was the same in so many ways it was almost uncanny and I had not made this connection before as my focus in class has been on her and not on me.

I think my questions were salient, but I am aware that there were occasions when the interviewees pushed for me to respond to them, or displayed insecurity and although I tried not to ‘lead’, some explanation was needed at times in order for comprehension of the question.  I also wanted them to feel relaxed, so there are odd moments of ‘both laugh’ in the transcripts, but as the Stamford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/) states; ‘We reflect on various types of experiences just as we experience them.’

I foresee an exhausting few weeks but I am glad it is underway.