Proposals - April 13, 2011
If you really want me to include both proposal drafts in this section, just email me and I can include them or email them to you, they are about 30 pages of writing each, so that seems excessive to include here.
My Final Proposal has been split up and put under different headings in this blog. If you'd like that included on this blog in one piece then again let me know--but it seemed to long to be interesting unless it was split up and under different sections.
Methods Practice 2: Mapping – February 16, 2011
Introduction: I interviewed two acquaintances from my ward with the goal of understanding them by understanding where they live. This is an intensely geographic approach to interviewing and it will help me understand people in Ghana. I’ll also come to understand their culture and community better with this method.
Preparation for the Interview:
Before I interviewed them, I brainstormed and sorted out what specifically I wanted to learn from them, mentioning that I was interested in learning about them as an individual as well as learning more about the place they are from. Here are some questions I brainstormed.
Where are you from? Have you ever lived anywhere else? Is there a reason you associate this place with where you’re from?
What are the main streets in your hometown?
Landmarks?
Homes you lived in in this town?
What places are personally significant to you?
How did you get to church? School? Work? Hospital?
Can you label the streets you’d use to get to each of those places?
Challenges in the town you grew up in?
Where are parts of this town that you like? Don’t like? Would avoid? Why?
What’s the fastest way to get to…?
What do you think are local entertainment areas or closest big attractions?
Political buildings? City Infrastructure areas (water plants, fire and police stations)?
The Actual Interview:
The interview was done for 45 minutes, and it would be easier to look at the map for most of the information they provided. However, there were some significant parts of the interview I wanted to note.
Informant one was from a small town in California. He had an easy time going step by step and answering my questions as I asked them. He rarely drew more than what my question asked, and it he would give an explanation only if I asked. I learned to ask him what he was drawing, and why. When we were talking about the main roads in his town for example, he mentioned that one of the qualifications he made for a main road was the speed limit assigned to the road. He drew human landmarks but didn’t think to draw landmarks until the other informant’s description of what he had drawn. I think it is interesting that with this method I learned how he—and perhaps his community—defines things in his neighborhood (like what is a major street) and I learned that having more than one person contribute to a map gives you more detail and information that gives you better understanding of a place or situation.
I also thought it was helpful that with some of the questions that were open to more interpretation, I often got a story to accompany their drawing or marking the map. When asking where they would go if they wanted to be alone, informant one said there was a place in the hills outside his community called “Top of the World” that he would visit during high school years to be alone, but that other people would visit that place because it was romantic or secluded for parties or a midnight rendezvous; informant two said that when he was young he’d go to an abandoned field that had a yellow jeep with his friends, when he was particularly upset he would run away to that place and his mom and friends always knew where to find him but he could be alone and upset. I got answers that were different, helped me understand them better, and also understand their community.
I think the most useful information I got from this interview was recorded details on their community or experiences with a place.
Analysis after the Interview:
The information I got from these interviews would be really useful and it didn’t take a long time to get my questions answered or learn a lot about two places I’ve never gone to or people I’ve needed to get to know better. The challenge was that while it was good to practice this interviewing method, it seemed difficult for the people I interviewed to see the real purpose or a good reason to be giving me all this information. It seemed more tedious to them than it did to me, and I could see they had other things to do with their time. Anyone can draw a picture of where they are from, and they felt like they could be confident in the information they were giving me. The interview didn’t contain very many confusing moments and it was fun to learn all of these things about a small town.
Another challenge was that it was more difficult to remember all the questions I had and so I would read them, but that seemed less natural than the interview I’d had before with the nurse from the hospital.
Finally, I’d say that unless I was really going to learn a lot from this type of interview and it was going to help with my study of the health clinic, I wouldn’t want to use this.
Methods Practice 1: Interviewing - February 4, 2011
Introduction:
I interviewed a nurse that has worked for a year and a half with the Utah Valley Medical Hospital. I chose this person as an interviewee because I’ll be interviewing nurses in Wiamoase and because I want to become more familiar with the Health Field as I’m developing my project.
Preparation for the interview:
Before I interviewed her, I brainstormed and sorted out what specifically I wanted to learn from her. I used this brainstorm information when I introduced my interest in interviewing her, mentioning that I was preparing a research project on evaluating the efforts and aspects of a rural health clinic in Ghana and would like some insight on the challenges specific to the medical field and what policies people in this field adopt to reduce or eliminate those challenges. Here are some questions I brainstormed.
What does she know about development techniques or opportunities of nurses and doctors?
What kind of challenges do you experience in your occupation?
What is the nurse life like? What kind of challenges you faced in your job in an average day? Are there common complaints among hospital staff?
What are some common solutions to potential problems in the nursing world?
Say a patient came in for an operation and was going to be there for two days recovering. What would be the routine for taking care of him on your shift? How do you perceive a patient’s attitude toward his or her nurses?
I’ve never really talked to anyone about hospitals before, so I don’t know a lot about differences between nurses, doctors and other hospital staff. Could you tell me about the differences in how a doctor is hired and treated from other staff members?
(Best used after flow is good from descriptive questions) Could you tell me some experiences you’ve had working as a…?
Imagine yourself visiting a new patient, someone that’s close to being fully re-cooperated. You don’t know any of them. What kind of things would they likely say to you when you first visited them?
Goals for the Interview:
I wanted to develop rapport and avoid our interview feeling like an interview, which in my mind involved asking her descriptive questions to help her fell feel comfortable talking with me, having only a semi-structured interview style—with a couple of overall goals of topics to cover but leaving most questions unprepared and subject to things she introduces to the conversation—and finally, an emphasis on restatement as a way (besides more questions) to explore a topic more.
(NON-JUDGMENTAL) RESTATMENTS: “Then you would say…” “So if {situation}… then {repeat what they said}” “{what they said}… Is that right” (Use different words, don’t ask for meaning, ask for use)
DON’T MAKE A LIST OF QUESTIONS: you’ll exhaust them. Make a list of topics or things you want to learn from her and keep that handy. Let the interview flow but look at that list if you lose the conversation flow.
Challenges I noticed:
I felt like there were a couple challenges during this interview. At the beginning, and then sometimes when there was a lull in the conversation, I felt like I was asking her too many questions and I worried that perhaps she didn’t want to keep interviewing. However, when we touched on revelatory topics or new concepts, that feeling quickly faded and I felt a rapport between us growing. I think that with this concern then, I would diagnose that I need to find a few key quality questions about things that I really don’t understand.
DISCOVER QUESTIONS: What is an interesting question about…? What is a question to which the answer is…? If I listened to nurses talking among themselves at the beginning of an evening, what questions would I hear them ask each other?
I also felt concerned when at the end I had run out of questions and couldn’t think of anything new to ask that wouldn’t be a waste of her time. However, I finally asked her if she felt there was anything about the challenges in the medical field that she felt like I had missed asking about, after that she was free to supplement the interview with facts and feelings that I hadn’t even considered asking.
Lastly I found that it’s easy to ask a stupid question, and that question can make the conversation awkward and hurt the rapport unless I quickly apologized for my ignorance and thanked her for helping me explore and learn so much.
Something I realize now that I could have asked was when she mentioned that Doctors are usually rude to nurses, I tried to reach out like a friend or a new acquaintance would, with sympathy, instead I could have incorporated this question from the reading and gained a greater perspective: “Could you give me an example of someone giving you a hard time?”
I also could have used these questions to help her describe the nursing experience: How would you refer to a shift? A patient? What kinds of sentences would I use the word “…” in? How would you refer to them, as patients? If you were talking to another nurse, would you say it that way?
I also noticed that I stretched to compliment or tell stories from my own life that relate to what she was saying. Neither of these techniques was useful and they often distracted from the flow of the conversation. I should develop different and more effective ways to respond.
A question to keep in mind for next time: Do you want an informant position or a point of view position? How did you treat this girl as an informant? How could you more effectively adopt the point of view style?
Things I learned:
I noticed that descriptive questions work well if well-phrased, and that summing up or restating what she’s said helps her feel oriented in the conversation and really add more to what she’s already explained.
If they are feeling apprehensive or unqualified for answering questions: explain purpose and and inform her what kind of interview this will be, namely, an opinion and experience seeking interview, that anyone qualifies for an interview like that and that I asked her because I felt she would provide unique and new insight to a topic I have little experience with.
Extra Questions - January 19, 2011
I've been reading a book by Susan Black called "Development Theory" and she describes some of the challenges faced by Development. How are these development issues related to my study? I want to study sustainability of development efforts in Wiamoase, specifically looking at the efforts of the Salvation Army Clinic in the area.
1. How long has the clinic been there?
2. How can I get a contact in the Salvation Army?
3. How can I get a contact in that area?
4. Would they feel comfortable with me studying this topic with them?
5. What things would I participate in while volunteering at the clinic?
6. What efforts have been made in the Medical Field to promote sustainability?
7. What characteristics have this clinic adopted from the policies in the Medical field?
8. What characteristics are unique to Wiamoase's clinic?
9. Are there policies influenced by the local government or community?
10. What kind of success has the clinic experienced over the years it's been there?
11. What type of services does the clinic offer?
It seems like I have questions about the clinic, about the development policies the clinic has adopted, what policies have promoted the sustained presence of the clinic in the area, and what relationship the community and clinic have with each other. Now how can I combine these interests into my study? Can I measure these things?
Questions Andrew asked me:
What are your thoughts [on development]?
What have you seen?
How might you see things going in Ghana?
According to your research so far, how might you go about tackling some of these questions?
Maybe give a few hypotheses with these questions.
Research question - January 12, 2011
How do clinic volunteers view the efforts of Wiamoase’s Salvation Army Clinic in regards to level of developmental sustainability?
First 25 Questions - January 10, 2011
1. What will I feel when I go to Ghana?
2. What will I feel when everyone around me speaks unrecognizable languages?
3. Have I ever felt anything like that before?
4. What will it be like to barter the price of housing and food?
5. What will it feel like to be a stranger in a community where everyone is going about their own lives and I am only there for a few months?
6. How will I begin my research when I get there?
7. Who will I talk to first?
8. What parts of the community will be open to me or more reserved?
Are these the right type of questions to ask?
9. Why are you interested in studying development in Africa?
10. How can you do field study research on that topic if there are no major humanitarian efforts occurring in Wiamoase?
11. What will it be like to get to know a person in such a different culture?
12. What kind of field work should I focus my efforts on (descriptive, observation, participation)?
13. Why do people in Africa receive aid?
14. What types of humanitarian efforts are currently involved in Africa?
15. Ghana?
16. Are there people involved in the community, facilitating aid?
17. What type of people help with that aid?
18. What people are the major benefactors of aid?
19. Who is effected negatively?
20. How?
21. What kind of aid efforts are negative?
22. Why is it negative?
23. What kind of aid is positive?
24. Why is it positive?
25. How will people feel about me coming into their community to study this aspect of African life?
26. Are there other aspects they thing would be more beneficial for me to ask about?
