Talk:Introduction
Roger, do we need a small addition which states "what this manual is not?". Just getting concerned about the whole philosophical, epistemological deabtes etc - N
Arathi-- what are your impressions about the manual? Does the manual come across as too dumbed down version of what qual. R should be (this is my biggest fear, hence asking you to comment as the third eye)? -N
I agree that we need to say a bit more about what it is not -- to cover ourselves from critical comment by those who will accuse us of ducking the big philosophical issues (which we do). I don't believe we are too dumbed down: we must keep our target audience and purposes in mind, and they don't need unnecessary complexity (tho' we can always change our minds if that's the feedback we get).
We need also to put in somewhere that the ideal size for these workshops is 10-16 participants, I think.
Also we could do something with the feedback from some of the early workshops: what people really liked (to reinforce the point about the benefits of interactive styles of teaching, for example) Roger 16:12, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
N&R: I think the greatest value of this manual is suggesting interactive ways of learning about qual res..., particularly in contexts where didactic instruction and quantitative research approaches are predominant. The kinds of interactive/exploratory sessions you have designed may already encourage certain epistemological shifts, and perhaps even debate, even though issues of epistemology are not explicitly 'taught'. I think this is much more useful for now, but as Roger states, we can keep this open for change with feedback. You have stated at the start that this manual requires facilitators to modify/add/extent to material, which acknowledges that this presents just a framework... thus i don't see it as 'dumbed down'. I think the 'how to use the manual' section could be modified to convey this more clearly, and also what the manual 'is not', in order to avoid straight out criticism. Arathi 16:41, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
Roger+Nidhi, i've thought more about the way the manual is introduced here and in the flyer that R has emailed. I think we need to consider the language that is used and the assumptions that might underlie it, or might be read as underlying it. Ie, qualitative research has remained 'neglected' in the South: perhaps, but by whom and why? It is quite strong language for the opening sentence, which might be read as dismissing existing important qualitative work (MN Srinivas for an Indian example), and the continued efforts in universities (Sarangapani, Kumar), and perhaps even the academicians you wish to target, to encourage qualitative research in the south. I think opening with a positive statement instead would be good. [i will have a go at thinking of an opening, if you think these suggestions should be taken up]. Also, and this might be very picky, but i also think that language such as 'rudimentary' might be very strong too. In the 'hopes and fears' section, the last point asks facilitators to let you know how it went and the changes they made. Perhaps also here, we could encourage them to let us know what other resources they used, particularly from the south, so we can build up a good base of 'southern' qualitative methodology writing or examples of good 'southern' qualitative research...to acknowledge the 'growing recognition' of such work, and so that we can build it in to the manual as it gets updated. [i will also put some energy in to finding some good examples of such work]. Anyway, just some thoughts. Arathi 22:52, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Arathi+ Roger: AS, the points you make are very well taken. You are very right about being careful about the assumptions we are making and how these come across to our audience. Thanks! Roger- will you give a shot at incorporating these in the id21 flyer and the Intro. to the manual. Also, Arathi-- do send your alternatives too.
Excellent points: I've accepted all the edit changes in the flyer and added one or two more, and I will circulate it again before I send it for comment to id21. Yes, of course, we don't want to give the impression that we don't value or know about existing work or the historical background, so let's all review this page (and indeed the whole manual so far) with this in mind -- Nidhi and I had a long talk last night about what needs to be done so I think we'll see quite a few changes in the next few days! Roger 08:15, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Roger- i think we need to give the users a style of reference that we would like them to use when referencing this manual. i think it is important to do this.
Style of reference
The CC license requires attribution, and suggests that you say how you would like to be attributed. So we should come up with what the reference should look like, but also with a sentence how we wish to be acknowledged. --Bjoern 10:05, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Singal, N., and Jeffery, R. (2008). Qualitative Research Skills Workshop: A Facilitator's Reference Manual, http://oer.educ.cam.ac.uk/wiki/RECOUP, Cambridge: RECOUP (Research Consortium on Educational Outcomes and Poverty, http://recoup.educ.cam.ac.uk/). CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. (original page)
