Friday, 12 October 2007

Data Collection... Ooops!

As an academic researcher, I experienced a disaster.

Yesterday, I went into an organisation "to discuss a data collection process". That was my plan. However, a manager suddenly started to tell stories. It was formal because the time and date were arranged in advance. It supposed to be semi-structured with open questions but turned out to be unstructured. I did not have time to ask if I could record his voice. Holly #$%&!! I decided not to stop him and write down his talk.

The manager was so enthsiastic and supportive. But he just kept going his talk. It was around for 45 minutes. He already answered more than half of questions I prepared (but I did not show him). After he finished his talk, I said what I wanted for my research. He said he will organise another time for me. Recording should be no problem... but next time.

Then, we had a company tour. The manager show me around, explained and talked his concerns. Again, it was not all recorded. It was all informal, unstractured interviews... No, it was not. It was a narrative or story.

Hey, ethonographers! How can you guys do observation and interviews at once? It was so hard for me to talk with the managers while looking around the site. I was lucky because my supervisors were with me. They listened to the manager. I could write down some things. But I missed some part of his talk when my eyes were on some places.

You can say, "it should be recorded". Nah... it is easy to say, but hard to do in the noisy plant. I can guarantee that recording does not work in such an environment. It is physically and technically impossible unless I take a journalist approach (that means my research is not be academic any more).

My eyes can look at only one thing at a time.
My hands can write down only one thing at a time.
My ears can listen to only one thing at a time.

I could not listen to the manager's talk and the sound in the plant (it is important thing for my research) at once. While I wrote down the feature of the plant, I could not write down what the manager said. How could researchers in the pre-technology-age manage and accomplish such tough task... without recording devices? Although those divices were available, how can we record the sounds of more than two places at once?

Incorporating interviews (conversations) into participant observation is technically impossible. They need to be seperated, but they never can independently occur in reality.

Anyway, I have got some documents as well. Other materials are also coming soon. Next time I will organise another interviews, another site observation with photo-taking and photo-interviews.

I have a lot of data but I feel like I did not get any.

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