In the past few days and having read Dr. Major's latest email, I have read up a bit more about autoethnography and did teeny bit of research to see how it can be used.
And then I re-read pragmatic qualitative research notes and also in Major's Qualitative Research book to have a better understanding (because typically when I write, I do go off track, getting immersed in sharing what I know...thus the main reason for my having written the prospectus with a kaleidoscopic lens rather than telescopic lens).
Then I self-evaluated my reservations for not wanting to do PQR to its fullest (for wanting to do autoethnography for data collection and analysis part of the dissertation).
Here are the reservations I can honestly find inside myself:
- I would like to share my perspectives, juxtaposing with student perspectives
- I would like to make my dissertation an interesting read, to draw any colleague to read, not be bored
- I felt and still feel pressured to make this dissertation an interesting read because my research topic focuses on the phenomenon of writing pedagogy
- I want to do some kind of story-telling
- My being the researcher and also the instructor does not make me objective; I am more involved in the research
After having read and re-read the autoethnography, I then read about interpretive phenomenological analysis. This makes me go back to PQR to see what analytic methods I can really use.
Then I realized that I had not yet finished reading the book past research approaches section. No wonder why I did not "make sense" in the methodology section of my prospectus.
Pragmatic Qualitative Research Case Study with phenomenological and narrative overtones
According to Savin-Baden and Major (2013), "There is no one pragmatic research design that serves as a map for guiding a study. Rather, researchers take an eclectic approach to the research, depending on what is most beneficial to the study. They draw upon a range of other methods to complement pragmatic research, which some researchers have described as having a 'cast', or overtone" (p. 174)
Therefore, I will conduct my pragmatic research with phenomenological and narrative overtones in order to ask for leeway in my writing up the dissertation, to insert my perspectives to juxtapose with students' perspectives on writing pedagogy as significant learning. Having such overtones would, in my researcher's mind, help validate the interpretation of the data.
If I shape the research into a pragmatic qualitative case study, where I can describe the natural setting of students writing to learn.....then conduct the data collection through their writing, to read their thoughts on writing pedagogy as significant learning.
As for data analysis, I think after having confused myself for a while that I somehow gained a better understanding of how I can do thematic analysis (here I am hoping that I can add my perspectives to juxtapose with the students' perspectives to provide interpretation of the themes coded).
Lastly, I really really want to have an entire chapter on researcher positionality.