Time for the method... Now where do I get the pesky ingredients?

I've been reading about research methods for some time now in an attempt to be a diligent PhD student and to be honest I have been somewhat confused to say the least.  Research methodology seems so intimidating, it's full of new language and some very long words (I still sound ridiculous when I say interpretive phenomenological analysis).  With this in mind I knew I would need some help and develop an awareness of different methods available so that I can defend my choice when it comes to my viva.  My fabulous friend and fellow PhD student Wendy recommended a week long course in Oxford that had helped her enormously,  It was rather nattily named 'Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods' and looked promising, so bags packed I set off for a week with complete strangers.  

I wasn't disappointed, the course was run by competent and experienced researchers and the people taking the course were all so diverse in their backgrounds with differing areas of research to talk about so was immediately interesting and engaging. Research subjects ranged from TB screening, medicines compliance, Fear of birth, Obesity, end of life care, psychology within the military and education to name but a few. Discussions and lectures were delivered alongside practical sessions to help contextualise and make sense of the masses of data we would be gathering from our interviews, focus groups and observations.  We were encouraged to try and consider fully the implications of using particular ways of gathering data to start with especially with regard to our own project.  The follow up to this was then to analyse the data in a structured way to add rigor to the research design.  One of the sessions was OSOP (One Sheet Of Paper), here is mine based upon my week away.......

The idea behind the OSOP is similar to a mind mapping process... I like all the pretty colours as it's simple things like this that keep me engaged! This is a process that enables the researcher to help develop themes within a transcript and I feel I have clearly identified that 'making new friends' was one of my favourite themes that I may be a little biased towards! 

I really wasn't expecting to get on so well with so many people but was surprised to feel so much warmth, especially on my birthday.  The lovely Nikki baked the most beautiful chocolate cake complete with candle when I was expecting to feel sad away from family and friends...

It was lush, the only annoying factor is that Nikki appears to be one of those women who can just knock up the most amazing cake at the drop of a hat! I did get the chance to FaceTime family in the evening and open cards and presents from home, to be honest my brain was filled up and buzzing with so much stuff I was glad to be in bed by 8:30 with some reading.... Oh how my life has changed! 

So back to work - The most challenging aspect for me so far is the understanding of my philosophical assumptions, basically the consideration of how I think (epistemology) and interact (ontology) with the world around me.  This is important because I have to consider how my assumptions and knowledge will impact the way I interprete my research findings... This is where qualitative research in my opinion has the potential to get messy! If I look even deeper with my philosophical lens I can try and place my epistemological position within a category that basically says that I could come from a positivist position (where my thoughts are more influenced by observation, social facts and general laws) -This is a great standpoint for a qualitative researcher... or interpretivism (where my thought are more influenced by knowledge based upon interpreting meaning in social action) very qualitative... I believe I sit somewhere in the middle.  

The importance of these at times mind blowing thoughts were illustrated when I undertook a practical interview session with the subject heading "what factors influence what people eat?" I thought I had prepared well, I planned to have the opening question that would elicit a narrative response and had simply heaps of questions that would help me find out how my interviewee was influenced by many factors when choosing what to nibble on.  This I thought was right up my street, if anyone can figure out the inner workings of someone's diet then I was the woman to do it! Oh how wrong could I be..... I got the fabulous Adam, who didn't really care about where he got his food from, never cooks for himself as he has an amazing partner who takes care of that and he managed to thrive on bread and jam when he was growing up..... Typical, nothing seemed to influence his food intake except for whatever was put in front of him... I wasn't expecting that but I was very glad that this rather lovely summertime spritz was placed in front of us later that evening....

So where am I now? Well I've settled on conducting focus groups and semi-structured interviews as a means of collecting my data with a grounded theory approach to interpreting an analysing the data. This is a method by where I will look at the transcripts of each interaction then look at themes and give them a category or code.  From this point I will look for themes that I was expecting then also adapt my line of questioning during the process to take any new themes into account.  My method with be looking at reaching a saturation point (when the women who I speak to aren't revealing any new themes) and at this point my theory will be grounded... I can't wait!