Five (On Robust Student Discussions)

I recently used the 2012 Facebook study as a way to start a conversation about ethics and research.

Image (unedited) attributed to Owen W Brown. Accessed through Flickr Creative Commons.

As I have been thinking and reading about student motivation (see this great article by David Gooblar), I had the opportunity to facilitate a lecture for one of my advisors in her undergraduate-level course, Language Acquisition.   Dr. Finestack provided me with a framework (thanks, Liza!) for the class.   In addition to covering the importance of child language research and the anatomy of a scholarly article, we also covered research with human subjects.

Class started something like this:

“I am going to ask a few questions about your experience with research.  You do not have to participate by raising your hand to indicate your answers but I invite you to do so if you choose.”

“How many of you have participated in research before?” (About 50% of the class raised their hands.)

“How many of you have volunteered or worked in some capacity on a research project? This could include any point in the project – design, data collection, data preparation and synthesis, analysis etc. . . ” (Again, about 50% of the class raised their hands.)

“How many of you use Facebook.”  (Nearly every hand went up.)

“Okay, so a few of you.”  (I got a few laughs.)

“How many of you most likely posted at least 1 post to your Facebook page in January of 2012?  If you did, you may have participated in a study conducted by researchers who work for Facebook.”  (Then, I spent 2-3 minutes describing the study. . . including that the “participants” were not aware their NewsFeed content was being manipulated.)

This lead to a nice discussion about the nuanced way we talk about the people who engage in research. Are they subjects? Are they subjected to a set of experimental procedures?  Are they participants?  Do they actively participate in the entire process? If not what parts do they participate in? Who has opportunities to participate in research?   How do we protect the people who participate?  Why does it matter?

Sometimes,  teaching is exhausting and frustrating. But other times, you introduce a unit on research, spend a short time discussing a study about social media and students animate a discussion with articulate insights.   In the midst of feeling frustrated and down about my place in Academia, it was a highpoint.

Four (On Written Preliminary Exams)

April. Where did you come from?

I know. You were hiding behind the stacks of articles I am reading in preparation for my written preliminary exams.

In January, I started the process.  I set up meetings with advisors and considered who would be appropriate committee members.  We discussed potential content areas and I expressed my desire to prepare for questions that would closely align with my dissertation project (which does not exist. . .yet).   Near the end of the month, I had a general idea of the three content areas I would review for each committee member: interventions for conversational management (one of many social communication constructs) skills in persons with ASD, measurement of functional outcomes of social communication intervention for persons with ASD, and the application of adapted alternating treatments design (Sindelar, Rosenberg, & Wilson, 1985) to compare communication interventions for persons with ASD, with a particular focus on internal and external validity issues.  (I am also writing a “Specials Paper” for one of my advisors in lieu of answering a fourth question).

In February, I started compiling reference lists for each content area.  This was no small task.  I had no idea how many references would be “enough.”  Honestly, I could spend the rest of my life reading relevant literature and still feel behind.   This feeling has not been reconciled in a systematic way; I still search for references, add them to my reference manager and realize that I should be reading, so I return to that task.

March was (mostly) spent reading and annotating.  I have not quite finished annotating all of my references (and I’m certain there are ones I have not considered that I probably should).  I tried different workflow approaches to maximize my study time.   I learned that I work better with large chunks of time versus smaller units broken up by meetings and other projects.

Here are a few strategies that have helped me carve my time in a way that makes me most productive.  On designated days, I try to read and write when my brain works the best (typically between 5-6am, 8-11am, and 6-8pm).  I schedule time mid-morning and late afternoon to check and respond to email.  I am a PhD student; the fires that appear in my inbox are not critical.  There is no reason to be accessible via email throughout the day.  If my students have an assignment that is coming up due, I increase the amount of time I spend responding to emails but do not check more frequently.  The other hours I use for meetings and tasks related to my research assistant position or my teaching assistant position.  The end of a work day includes reflecting on my progress, tracking the articles and annotations I’ve completed, and updating my to-do list (both short and long term lists).

So, this is the strategy that I am using.  It is certainly not the strategy that some of my colleagues implemented (who passed by the way) but it is my strategy.  Academia is filled with people who work, think, and contribute in different ways.    I hope my strategies serve me well when I sit for the exams. I know my approach will continue  to serve me in the future.  The annotating has provided ample opportunity to practice writing and the time management tactics will help me when I write dissertation pages.