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Week 5 Discussion - Field Notes Interview

The author conducted their first field notes interview with the director of STEM at their school district. They enjoyed learning the director's perspectives and having dedicated interview time. Challenges included technological issues that disrupted the interview and questions being answered out of order. The author learned about qualitative data collection challenges like backup plans and effective data gathering. Overall, the interview experience was informative and the author looks forward to more fieldwork interviews.

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Daniel Lieu
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140 views3 pages

Week 5 Discussion - Field Notes Interview

The author conducted their first field notes interview with the director of STEM at their school district. They enjoyed learning the director's perspectives and having dedicated interview time. Challenges included technological issues that disrupted the interview and questions being answered out of order. The author learned about qualitative data collection challenges like backup plans and effective data gathering. Overall, the interview experience was informative and the author looks forward to more fieldwork interviews.

Uploaded by

Daniel Lieu
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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By this point, you are required to have completed at least one of your field notes

interviews. Describe your experience with the field notes interview(s) you have
conducted to date. Include some details (technical, logistical, personal, professional,
etc.) about the interview and the interview process itself. Use these prompts to help
guide your description:

 What did you enjoy about the experience?


 What challenges (technical, personal, or otherwise) did you encounter?
 How, if at all, was it different from what you expected, based on your course
readings and your assumptions?
 Based on your experience(s), how would you approach any subsequent qualitative
interviewing?
 What did you learn about qualitative data collection from this experience?

Please review the Discussion Assignment Instructions  and Discussion Grading Rubric


 prior to posting.  You may also click the three dots in the upper corner to Show
Rubric.
Submit your thread by 11:59 p.m. (ET) on Sunday of Module 5: Week 5.

ORIGINAL DISCUSSION POST:


At this point, I’ve completed by first field notes interview. It was an extremely interesting
process and I am glad that as I continue through my courses in this program, there are more
opportunities to integrate these experiences within the learning process. At my school district
and school site, I am thankful that there are a wide variety of people that I am able to reach out to
that have a doctorate, whether it’s a doctorate in education (Ed.D.) or a doctor of philosophy
(Ph.D.). Additionally, there are a multitude of varying research interests and degrees that they
had, whether it was in curriculum and instruction, instructional design, or the most popular one,
educational administration. For this field notes interview, I conducted an interview with the
director of STEM, who I work closely with.
She obtained her doctorate in educational administration and worked in administration within the
past 10 years. Prior, she spent another 10 years as a teacher, teacher on special assignment, and
curriculum advisor. What I enjoyed about the experience was being able to talk to the director of
STEM in a format that was different than the traditional work format. During work, we
communicate frequently, however the questions that are asked are not the same as a field notes
interview. In addition, it was great to hear perspectives and be more free to communicate her
thoughts and have dedicated time for an interview.
I encountered two challenges during the field notes interview. The first challenge was from the
limitation of technology. During the meeting, my wi-fi disconnected, which resulted in a period
where I was not able to understand the director of STEM and we had to pause the interview until
it could be heard on my end without fragmentation. Additionally, when we were having
discussions, it often went very well and some o the questions would be answered as it went
along. As a result, when the questions were numerically listed and answered out of order, to
avoid repetition, the interview had to be adjusted, which takes practice.
The previous challenge reminded me of Creswell and Poth’s (2018) focus on ensuring a
interviewee-centered discussion. As we interview, we utilize the discussions as means of driving
the conversation forward. I learned a lot about qualitative data collection from the experiences.
One of the most common data collection points that I learned was the importance of thinking
about how you’re going to collect data and back up plans for data collection. How can data be
collected in a manner that is efficient and does not interrupt the flow of the data that needs to be
gathered? Thinking about these questions can make a big difference in how effective the data
that is gathered can be used. It was interesting when I began to look more into this because there
is a lot of research on the research of qualitative data itself and the effectiveness of quality data
(Pope, Ziebland, & Mays, 2000). Not all data is equal, and as a result, it’s important to look into
what makes good qualitative data. Overall, this process was extremely interesting and I’m glad
that I can continue exploring fieldwork interviews and practicing this throughout my PhD.

References:
Creswell, J. W. & Poth, C. N. (2018). Qualitative inquiry & research design: Choosing among
five approaches (4th ed.). Sage Publications.
Pope, C., Ziebland, S., & Mays, N. (2000). Analyzing qualitative data. British Medical Journal,
320(72), 114-116.

RESPONSE 1 TO: Keri Palasz


Hi Keri,
I’m glad that you found your experience of the filed interview to be interesting and informative!
I am definitely in the same boat as I found that the field interview is not one that I do often, but
would love to continue doing more because there is so much that is learned when conducting an
interview with someone one on one. When you’re working with them in a normal working
environment with other people around, I find that it’s difficult to really dive deeper into the
content and concepts that one would like to go into. I also loved how Creswell and Poth (2018)
discussed that the interview is ruled by the interviewer because it reminded me of an interview-
centered environment, which is very similar to a student-centered environment that focuses on
cultivating a similar environment.
My biggest challenge was the use of technology and internet issues. Mid-way through the
interview, my internet cut out due to the winds in California and as a result, I couldn’t hear what
the interviewee was saying for about 5 minutes without fragmentation. This is something that
I’m learning that can’t really be frustrated by because it is life at this point during the pandemic,
but we just had to be patient with it. This reminded me your issues with technology as well and
how we are at the limitation of what would internet, devices, and technology overall can offer.
References:
Creswell, J. W. & Poth, C. N. (2018). Qualitative inquiry & research design: Choosing among
five approaches (4th ed.). Sage Publications.

RESPONSE 2 TO: Rebecca Martin Philyaw


Hi Rebecca,
Great reading your discussion post about your first fieldnotes interview! It’s also awesome that
your assistant superintendent within your school district was also your former youth group
leader. I think that there’s a great dynamic with that and great to know that there are
administrative staff within your school district that also share the same belief systems.
I also had the same challenge as you! I definitely find it relatable when I would ask a question
for the interview, but the answer to the next series of questions were answered in the first
response. It definitely takes a minute to get back on track to figure out which question is going
to be asked without repetition. This also highlights the importance of what Creswell and Poth
(2018) laid out within their explanation that the interview should be met with a interviewee
driven mindset. This really reminded me of a student-centered classroom, where adjustments
should be made to the classroom to accommodate instructional changes and classroom
implementations that best help the learner. Similarly, when an interviewee answers a question
that is upcoming, adjustments should be made to drive the conversations. Your comments
resonated with my experiences, as well as reminded me of what was read.
References:
Creswell, J. W. & Poth, C. N. (2018). Qualitative inquiry & research design: Choosing among
five approaches (4th ed.). Sage Publications.

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