In this reflection, I would like to separate my thought into two different directions. The first thing I want to talk about is qualitative and quantitative research. I like qualitative research because it helps to explore clear and detailed insights of participants’ experiences and backgrounds which are unreachable and invisible through quantitative research. Also, through qualitative research, I may be able to find connections with my participants (with the same linguistic and cultural background) and feel relieved that I am not the only one who see things that way. For example, I was working on a topic about second language humor for a research paper and my participants were from Taiwan. During the data collecting process, the participants were asked to read comics and watch cartoons in order to interpret the American humor from their perspectives. Their linguistic and cultural backgrounds and life experiences in the U.S. were included to explain their reactions toward American humor. I found some connections with my participants because we all thought swear words are funny in the cartoons (the facial and physical expressions in the cartoon were funny with the swear words). Without interviewing my participants, I would not have been able to catch what they thought about swear words. However, which research method is more reliable? Would you trust a study without any numbers? What’s the purpose of integrating numbers? To make the research look more scientific? Or would you rather read some research with narratives? Should we incorporate both research methods in our study? I guess that it all depends on the research project.
The second thing I want to talk about is the academic literacy that non-English speaking graduate students need to have. A lot of internal and external factors can influence how a person writes. It is mentioned in the article that teachers think finding appropriate vocabulary is a problem for non-native speakers. I still have trouble putting the right words or right sentence structures in my paper. Sometimes I think the words or sentences look fine, but actually they do not. They look awkward for Americans. However, I think my writing is getting better than when I first came here (my writings in the first year here were really scary when I go back and look at them). Through reading articles, talking to my classmates and professors and asking people to review my writing help me construct what writing process should be like. Social interaction and negotiation create a space for me to grow my academic literacy.
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I have a response to the two issues that you raised. First, I do agree that qualitative research gives the researcher an opportunity to probe more into the participants' responses. By asking participants to write narratives or conducting interviews that become a space for sharing and constructing knowledge with the participants, the researcher frees herself from the positivistic mind. You asked What’s the purpose of integrating numbers? To make the research look more scientific? I should confess that my initial conception of research when I started my M.A program was that I need to construct a hypothesis (H1, H0), select a scientific method, implement it, gather data, analyze data statistically (ANOVA, ... and the more complicated the test the better it is). Of course although there were some assumptions that should be met for the data to select the appropriate statistical test but still it was a kind of prescriptive procedure. Luckily when I started working on my dissertation, I realized that it all boils down to the nature of the problem you are addressing as you said.
ReplyDeleteIn some research, we still need to quantify and we should not feel "guilty" (I may be exaggerating)of using a quantitative research method. Also, we do not need to use both quantitative and qualitative methods to please both camps. We have to choose whatever method that best suit the research problem addressed.
As for the development of academic literacy, I do agree with you that we may address internal factors as being inherent to the language per se, i.e. to the linguistic competence, but we should not forget the external factors that I will categorize in the social interaction and the social network that a second language writer navigates or has to in order to better enhance her academic literacy. Communities of Practice are good venues to socially and culturally construct knowledge and develop academic writing. Luckily, we have a good CoP at work at IUP.
Thanks Hayat! I really appreciate your comments. I agree with you on both points you made. It's important to find whatever method that suit the projects we work on. Also, it is a good way to coconstruct knowledge socially and culturally.
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