In my meeting with my Professor this week, we mainly focused on our next step in our study: coding. Interestingly enough, I was ready to continue cleaning transcripts but Professor was insistent that we moved forward and started thinking about inputting data. This turning of the tables was very funny to us, and we actually laughed out loud in our meeting when we realized that we had switched our typical roles.
Professor went on to give me an overview of the different types of coding for qualitative analysis, which are very different from other techniques used for research dealing with numbers. In hearing the numerous types of coding we’d eventually use, it was also nice to hear that we had already done some coding in highlighting and taking out sensitive information in our transcripts and creating a key.
For my assignment and to enrich my learning about coding, she assigned for me to read a few excerpts from Johnny Saldana’s Coding for the Qualitative Researcher, which is quite a page turner for anyone in the research world. In addition, I needed to start thinking about my symposium presentation, which I only had a few weeks to complete and had barely given a thought to.
Though it caused me a lot of anxiety, once I actually sat down and starting going through my past journal entries, I found what I had to say and the progression of my thoughts very fascinating. I also realized that writing this series every week helped me to understand how to make the work I’m doing interesting and accessible to the average person (or at least I hope so).
That being said, I realize this is one of the last weeks of my research with my Professor, which makes me a bit sad considering how much I’ve been able to learn through this experience, but also excited to see where it goes in the years following my involvement.