Reading week & Week 6
The two weeks are mainly about making production and plans—I spent this half a month on starting many of assessments and formally launching my final project.
Prob because my intensives concentrate in the first half of the semester , I felt a bit busier at this stage than the last semester. Starting three assessments at the same time really caught me off guard in the beginning. Fortunately and unfortunately, the approaching deadlines pushed me to sort things out and move forward. When I’m writing this blog, I find something is ahead of schedule. It is a surprise and good signal for me to start the real work for the final project smoothly, which is supposed to be on track since March, at least I personal think so haha.😆
The most exciting thing is that I have had a clearer mind and strong motivation to begin my futures project after I talked with my Juli, my individual supervisor. Though the end of policy changed the background of the questions that I wanted to dig in, I think my plan is still doable, and it also brought me several new perspective to rethink the questions. I got a lot of suggestions and guidances that made my abstract and ideal thoughts into continuous stream and onto ground, including narrowing down the topic and focusing on specific group of people. Honestly, I realised I used to be a bit ambitious when previously sketching my project. But I think I constructed a broader context that guides me in the future work. I hope I could form them into some concrete words, like research questions, after I completed most of my assessments in the coming weeks. Juli also told me I should apply for EFI’s ethical approval before conducting interviews for for data collection. (also a reminder for anyone who will use interviews to collect data) So, currently I have already made a rough schedule and to-do list to work on the proposal step by step, like pilot interviews, literature review, decision on interview questions. There are still lots of literatures to read.
Have a good rest on weekend, guys!
Hey Will – you certainly sound organised with the list of actions, so well done. I am very far away from that point (though on a 2-year program, which means I have more time).
Out of curiosity have you got an idea of how many interviews you would need to make a good study?
Thanks Rhiannon! I was just pushed by the deadlines and squeeze some rough ideas out of my mind within a short time haha. And I think you will definitely have enough time to find an outstanding topic. Looking forward to hearing more about your project!
Actually your question is what I am currently trying to figure out, and I think it will depend on my pilot interviews to estimate how many interviews will be enough to have all the information I need in the future. And as I expect currently, I could stop if I have no new information in continuous interviews. (Sorry for replying late, coz I was really in a mess last week because of the assessments. )
No problem on the reply – I think we are all working on extended timelines with messages at the moment! I think that’s a good way to look at it: when the interviews stop showing up new information. I would be really interested to hear back what a good stopping point you felt was when you get there as I too am thinking about incorporating interviews as a data collection method 🙂