Summary Weeks 3 & 4

Holidays are always a strange time in academia, and particularly so at Walden, because we don’t technically get any time off. Add to that – two instructors got ill and you have a class pushing along under the momentum already established. The past 2 weeks students have been writing drafts of their literature reviews. There have been many common writing issues, such as not citing a source for statements or facts, and not addressing the "so what?" and "who cares?" questions. But they appear to be off to a good start on the process.

I read an interesting book on the oldest old on my trip to visit my children that I thought I would share:

Loe, M. (2011). Aging our way: Lessons for living from 85 and beyond. Oxford Press.  

The book is written by a sociologist and is basically her qualitative research, in which she interviewed 30 oldest old in Albany, NY. She has a slightly different focus than a psychologist, but it is surprising how similar some of her interviewees are to ours.

Happy New Year everyone!
Lee Stadtlander

Changing perceptions of healthcare

This week, our students are working on their various sections of the Introduction. One such section pertains to perceptions/changes in those perceptions of the oldest old with regard to healthcare.

This has me thinking about the oldest old individuals I have known relative to their health care and I cannot help but recall the sense of powerlessness I witnessed. Granted, these were my grandparents at a time in life when their bodies were failing them in serious ways - but I cannot help but wonder what it actually feels like to have one's physical body (and perhaps, knowledge of one's psychological body, too) deteriorating as one wonders about how he/she will manage health care. Obviously, worries about health care/funding of care are individual and certainly some do not have to worry about the particular issue of access to care. My grandparents all had sufficient/very good health care - so the powerlessness to which I refer is not about whether or not they would be able to access care. Rather, it was the simple powerlessness of not knowing when the body would simply give up.

Some of my grandparents had multiple heart attacks at older ages, before they passed away. I can only imagine how stressful those experiences were with regard to their individual perceptions of healthcare; how those experiences must have helped morph/shape perceptions based on a previously more robust physical self.

This remains a very compelling area of study for me – I am at a point where I can think of numerous ‘Pathways and Gatekeepers: Moderating, Mediating, and Proximal Processes’ as Poon and Cohen-Mansfield (2011) put it re- variables and influencing factors in the relationship between oldest old and their well being.
My head leans toward the social psychological models to try to make sense of these variables/influencing factors, such as the study of attitudes and personal bias – but these are just few of a potentially large field of factors. I am glad to see this field of study receiving more attention.

AES

Poon, L.W. & Cohen-Mansfield, J. (Eds.). (2011). Understanding Well-Being in the Oldest Old. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Summary Week 2

This week students were asked to develop a literature review outline for the article we will write. After a few days it became apparent that they didn't understand what was needed. We held a special lab meeting on Thursday night in which we laid out a plan for the outline and asked students to sign for sections of the literature review. In the third week they will begin writing up their sections.

We have finally received all of our transcripts from the interviews and I have been working on analyzing some of the interview questions. It always amazes me how long it takes to do so! Qualitative analysis is very labor intensive; it is not a fast method! If you want to get a project done quickly – quantitative (i.e., surveys) are much faster! However, interviews provide such rich data that it is hard for me not to collect it!

Things will be tricky over the next few weeks – holidays always make things slow down and I then have some family issues to deal with. Hopefully, we won’t get too behind in our posts.

Lee Stadtlander

Where to start with the Introduction!

We are diving right in to our Introduction and students are starting to post outlines for this section.

The Introduction of a Paper is much like chapter two of one's dissertation (though much shorter, to be sure). Here, our job is to 'sell' our academic argument as professionally, objectively, and logically as possible. At the end of the Intro, we want our readers to know what I want to study and test and why we need to study it - both from the perspective of the social problems involved as well as because there is a true gap in the literature/no one has studied the problem the way we are proposing to study it. Our work is original.

This can be hard to do because even though we have collected the data and therefore know the variables/study parts at hand, we have to think critically and creatively in a sense to put forth the necessary academic argument.

I often suggest to students that we want to go from general to specific in the Introduction meaning we start out by talking about the broad, far reaching social problems resulting from the issue at hand (e.g. if we don't study how the oldest old perceive their healthcare/provider, increased mortality, decreased quality of living, and increased healthcare costs may ensue). By the end of the Intro however, we want to have left the reader with a clear sense of the specific problem (questions and variables/themes of interest) under examination. Why? Well - the next section following the Intro is the Methods and in order for the reader to be able to understand our methodological choices, we had better do a very clear job of presenting the academic argument behind the methods!

If my academic argument indicates we need to study group differences in regard to elder care, then it does not make sense to see a regression in our methods section - but rather we should see an Anova, right? In other words, the Introduction must *align* with the Methods. The pieces of a research study should ideally fit together as such, like a puzzle.

This requires a lot of critical thinking and being able to conceptualize beyond the mechanics of last quarter and data collection.

Hopefully, our students are working to make this shift in mind set; it can be challenging!

AES

Summary Week 1

The first week of our third quarter! We have come a long way in the project! As Dr. Sickel mentioned, this week the students have been suggesting various possible journals for our future article. For me, it has been interesting to observe the great interest the students have in the project and the support they offer each other. We have definitely become a team; it is wonderful to watch the development of the group.

The instructors have been working behind the scenes on some projects to promote the use of virtual labs. We are doing a training session during the Miami faculty meeting in January, and have been preparing all of our materials. It feels like we have learned so much about how to develop the labs and train students, we are excited to share our knowledge with others. We are also submitting a proposal for the Annual Conference on Distance Education and Learning in August. The proposal is due in January, so we’ve been working through how best to approach a presentation.

Lee Stadtlander

Third Quarter of Lab!

Here we are, starting our third quarter of this research lab. Our week has started off our formal conversation about where/how to publish the data we have thus far. I recall when I was a graduate student, I was very eager to get a publication and this entire side of academia seemed like a big mystery that was potentially unattainable. I did eventually get that first publication but it took quite a bit of work.

In addition to setting up the classroom, we instructors have had our first instructor meeting for the quarter. I must say - one of the most enjoyable aspects of this experience (and there have been many) is working with my colleagues in such a new, unique, and flexible manner. I feel quite fortunate to be able to work with each other, support each other, and pick up where another leaves off - knowing that the same will occur for me.

It is going to be interesting to see where we are at the end of this quarter, compared to where we are now. Students have begun to list many journals as possible targets for submission and at the moment, I cannot see where the publication will go - so I look forward to seeing how this all unfolds.

One thing I do know, publishing takes time and perseverance. Hopefully, we are all up for it!

Welcome back everyone,
AES

Summary Week 12

We have completed the second quarter of the lab! This week we had our last lab conference call for the quarter. During the call our goal was to come to a resolution on the subject of the article that we are to write in the final quarter of the lab. During the previous week students proposed various topics for the paper, but most were not consistent with the data that we had available. During the call the faculty laid out the data we had available and discussed various scenarios, we came to the realization that the best solution was to go with the topic of the student poster: Physician relationships in the oldest old.

We took a new approach to making the decision, which has gotten a number of positive comments from students – we basically discussed the issues as we would in a face to face lab, and reached consensus on the topic. The students had the opportunity to hear how the faculty went about making the decision, and the issues that we felt were important.

I have collected all of the research surveys from both the lab and control students which showed a significant pattern of learning and an increase in self-efficacy in the lab students. The control students’ scores stayed at about the same level. So we have clearly shown that being in a lab increases research knowledge and research confidence over a non-applied curriculum.

We will have a week break now and be back to the lab the first week of December

Lee Stadtlander

Time for a break

Our lab is wrapping up week 12 of the quarter and we had our last lab meeting conference call for fall quarter last night. In it, we finalized our article topic (I am sure Dr. Stadtlander will elaborate on that).

It is exciting to see our work come to conclusion in this way - if not a conclusion exactly, we have certainly crossed a major milestone in deciding upon the article's focus. Next quarter, we will be working on sewing the article together with the help of all of our student researchers.

As this break coincides with Thanksgiving - it is a great time for folks to unplug and recharge so as to gear up for a strong winter quarter pace with the article.

I think Instructors appreciate the break as much as do students - it is in my humble opinion, vital in order to recharge.

AES

Summary Week 11

This week we asked students to think about topics for our paper that we will write next quarter. They have had many ideas, although we do not have enough data to use many of them for a professional article. Still, it is good to have them consider the issues.

We found this week that our posters have been accepted for Walden’s winter research symposium in Miami. The students were very excited to hear that their poster will be presented. The faculty were also asked to have a breakout session during the faculty meeting on training faculty on how to develop virtual labs.

I want to emphasize that it is very important to get your research out to the professional field. It does no good to anyone to keep your results and knowledge in a file drawer. It needs to be shared. We are trying to publicize the idea of conducting virtual labs – this is not a fad, but a viable method of collecting data and training students. We have shown the feasibility of it over multiple quarters and projects. We have demonstrated and collected data showing that students learn more by applying their knowledge in a real research project. The other benefit that is apparent, but hard to capture is the excitement and enthusiasm for research that has grown in the students. As they see how research is conducted and are assured that they can do it, their confidence has built. I particularly enjoying seeing the connections they make in the literature and suggestions for future research possibilities. It is the creative aspect that makes it enjoyable for the researcher (and for the instructor).

Lee Stadtlander

Working towards the article...

As Dr. Giles notes, we now have *lots* of data and at this point, there is always the risk of letting that wonderful fact (better than having too little data, right?) overwhelm the article formation process.

As Sternberg (2000) writes:

"There are two possible articles you can write: (a) the article you planned to write when you designed your study or (b) the article that makes the most sense now that you have seen the results. They are rarely the same; and the correct answer is (b)." (p. 4)

So our task is to find what makes the most sense and if we are lucky it will overlap with what we set out to do. As we sift through the data, it is also important to keep in mind where the data contribute most with regard to the existing literature and the existing gaps in that literature. This part of the process can be hard for students because not only does it require assimilating considerable and complex data but also because it requires that we mentally go back to the literature a bit to see where our work helps to fill a gap. Students are starting to post suggestions, based on our data and based on the literature in our lab this week – which is exciting because we start to see the end ‘product’ if you will but also because it requires that students think critically, take a risk and put their ideas out there. As an instructor, this is a very rewarding part of the process!

AES



Sternberg, R.J. (Ed.). (2000). Guide to Publishing in Psychology Journals. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

more thoughts

So much data... now what?  We are narrowing in on a topic with which to write a journal article.  It seemed like such an easy task at first: just pick something and write about it.  But as we get further into it, it is not as easy as it sounded.  We have so much data and we need to look at topics that incorporate both qualitative and quantitative data.  I think it is hard for the students to see how one piece of information informs the other.  Do the results from the heath efficacy scale inform the interview questions, or do the interview questions inform the results from the scale.  Do we match the results of the LoC with specific examples from the respondent or general interview results from all?  Do we just look at the demographic info and say that informs the interviews?  Do we analyze everything and then pick something that showed the most significance?  What do we do about the things we have found that may be significant but were not part of our original research questions?  And what about outliers, do we even mention them?

I think these tasks are much like the tasks every student must work through in the dissertation process.  What to include, what to exclude, what is important and what is not.  All the while, maintaining ones ethical obligations and scholarly work.  Not an easy task.  If one keeps in mind that they are adding to the body of literature and not attempting to prove their own hypothesis, I think it becomes easier.  Write about what actually transpired and what can be backed up by the data collected.  Remembering that data must be stored for at least 5 years after the completion of the study ( not for participant security, but to provide the raw data should someone questions your results).

So what will we write on?  That will be up to the students to decide once they look at all thee data and decide which pieces inform which other pieces and fill a gap..... Wish us luck :)

M. Giles

Summary Week 10

This week students have been exploring their choice of interview questions in the transcripts and looking for themes. They have discovered a number of themes, such as participants’ desire for their doctor to like them, and doctors do not appear to discuss typical age related changes with their patients. This is particularly interesting when you consider that many doctors blamed the person’s symptoms on age.

We had a lab conference call this week; one thing that became clear is that the online environment does not appear to be conducive to students’ asking vague questions. The students stated that they feel that they must have a specific question in mind in the classroom, and when they are not sure exactly what to ask they hesitate to post it. The faculty have been very open to questions in the lab, so this is an interesting revelation. Students in the meeting asked about basic issues such as what is the difference between a code and a theme. Yet, they had hesitated to address the issue in class. I have to wonder, what is it about writing out the question in class that feels more threatening? Perhaps in person they are more aware of others also not knowing the answer?

Again, I have come to realize the importance of having regular lab conference calls, where we all have the opportunity to share information and questions. We only have two more weeks of the quarter remaining, next quarter we begin writing up all our data for a possible journal article. I think the conference calls will be even more important next quarter, to make sure that we are all on the same page during the writing process.

 Lee Stadtlander

Summary – Week 9

This week we asked students to read through several full transcripts and consider what they learned that was different from the experience of doing the interview in person. Many students mentioned that they wished that they had slowed down and focused more on the interviewee’s responses. They felt that they often cut off something he or she was going to say. It is so important, particularly when interviewing older people to give them time to reflect on the question and think about it. Silence is often uncomfortable for the interviewer, but necessary. Several students do employment interviewing in their everyday job and indicated how different research interviewing is from it. In research interviewing you must focus on several things at one time: making sure they answered question, getting ready to ask the next question, being aware that someone else is going to hear the interview recording, and try to appreciate what the person is saying.

Some students commented that the sheer volume of data felt overwhelming. A half hour interview can often generate 20-25 single spaced spaces. Multiplied by our 35 participants, that is a great deal of information to process! Some interesting insights came from the students’ review of the transcripts: “many participants had lost their original physician to retirement or death, and had to find someone new.” Which is yet another loss for the oldest old. “Several participants mentioned that they take their aches and pains as just part of the aging process.” “Some women indicated that they no longer do GYN exams or mammograms.” We discussed that we wished we had followed up on these comments and gotten more information on why this is a case. As with all research this project is leading to more questions for future studies.

We finalized the two posters we will be submitting on the project for Walden’s Winter Research Symposium in Miami in January. The students seemed to have learned a lot from doing the poster and thinking about the project as a whole and how the pieces interconnect.

Lee Stadtlander

Research is sometimes quite unnatural in today's world

Lately, I have been doing a lot of data work in SPSS. As I get bogged down in the details of the data set, I realize how hard it is for me to pull myself out of it when I have to leave the work for other obligations. Similarly, it takes considerable effort at times, to hurl myself into this part of the work as I know it to be detailed and labor intensive.

It strikes me that such detailed work is a bit unnatural in our increasingly instantaneous lives. We tend to expect things to happen quickly and with relatively little effort. Our ability to communicate almost instantly with anyone anywhere in the world is one example.

In social psychology, there are what we call judgmental heuristics which basically represent mental shortcuts we take to save ourselves some effort, energy, resources, etc... We tend to make judgments: based on how readily we can pull up pertinent examples (availability heuristic); how similar an unknown object may be to a known entity (representativeness heuristic); and we seem to pay considerable attention to our attitudes over knowledge or facts (attitude heuristic) (Anderson, 2008).

All of this for me highlights the need to make time, space, and effort for focused work such as what needs to be done in research. In a world increasingly dependent upon technological advances making our daily lives infinitely quicker than they were even last year - this can be hard to do. In support of this is a recent article I found in Linkedin News and , titled 'Four Destructive Myths most Companies Still Live By' by Tony Schwartz.

http://www.linkedin.com/news?actionBar=&articleID=881785693&ids=0MdPwSc3AQe3wIcPASdjwTcjwUb3gOej8PcjATe2MMcjkMcjsUdPwIcPgSej4UdPsU&aag=true&freq=weekly&trk=eml-tod-b-ttle-68&ut=1k_OU91mKbP4Y1

The first myth Schwartz presents is Multitasking is critical in a world of infinite demand. This is a by product of a variety of factors, no doubt but due in part to our increased ability to have instant results and to physically do many things at once - if not well.

Research is a kind of critical thinking which by its nature, requires that we slow down and think well and I find myself feeling increasingly protective of it. I hope this is something our students, too, can appreciate.

AES

Anderson, E.A. (2008). The Social Animal. (10th ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.

thoughts

I have been thinking a lot about the ethical issues inherent in research. I believe that most students, and hopefully, all researchers know about protecting subjects. Subjects involved in studies must be informed of the purpose, length, requirements and all parts of a study prior to consenting to be in the study. This is informed consent, and protects both the participant and the researcher. Of course, there are other considerations: humane treatment, avoidance of deception, no coercion, etc. But all of these issues relate to the study participants.

I wonder how much students really look at the ethics involved in data collection. If someone marks two numbers on the same line of a survey, if they skip a question, if they do a task after the due date..... can that data be used? The simple answer is no. Of course if the survey allows for skipped questions, the researcher can simply throw out the skipped question or omit the double answer. If the response is time sensitive and results come in late, that data cannot be used. What if one of the subjects decides at the last minute that he/she does not want his/her data used? It must be thrown out even if the analysis has been completed.

I believe that student researchers sometimes forget that informed consent allows the individual to pull out of the study at any time. That really does not happen, to my knowledge, but I wonder if students think about what they would do if it did happen. I wonder if they think about what they would do if surveys that were time sensitive were submitted late? What would they do if half a survey was left incomplete?


We spend a great deal of time talking about the ethics involved in human research, but not as much about what happens once the consent form has been signed. I am wondering if more time should be spent with students talking about the ethics involved with data collection, analysis, and what can be said in a discussion of the results..... Just my thoughts...

Week 8 Summary

This week we had a lab conference call and discussed our qualitative data. The students were also told more detail about the poster for Walden’s research symposium in January in Miami. We offered the students the opportunity to develop a poster based upon our preliminary data. Eight students decided to work on it as group, we received their draft today, and they did an awesome job on it!

The faculty have also been working on their own poster on the lab and the research skills that students have learned over the two quarters they have worked with us. The data show a clear pattern of learning by the students in the research lab over the control group. Both groups showed an increase in research efficacy which we have been considering how best to explain. It may be that the control group felt involved in the project as members of the control group and their confidence increased because of that. Alternatively, this blog may have provided a window in the project that made them feel more aligned with the project.

Lee Stadtlander

Telling a Story

I greatly appreciate this week's lab reading, Chapter 8 in Sternberg's Guide to Publishing in Psychology Journals. I particularly like the part of this chapter (written by Peter Salovey) that in the context of advocating authors 'tell a story' discusses how presentation/discussion of quantitative findings can really squelch the story if not written mindfully. When we write our statistical findings using solely statistical terminology with no 'prose' (p. 125) or verbiage to provide context for those tests and statistics - we may lose the reader.

This takes effort on the author's part as it is much easier to simply dump all of the statistics out there for the reader, assuming he/she will adequately understand.

I appreciate these comments by Salovey. It is my opinion that providing reader with appropriate context is vital to academic writing and yet is very challenging for students who are trying to learn how much/how little is needed in order for the context provided to be adequate.

Providing the appropriate context for our reasoning, for our results/statistics not only enhances readability but gives us a better sense of the particular story we are trying to tell in the study at hand. I like this as I find academic writing that is less focused on prose and providing context far less compelling.

This is what I try to encourage in my students, when I remind them that each chapter of the dissertation is a story unto itself - in service of the overall one being told via the dissertation. Our goal in both dissertation and academic writing of any kind is to tell the precise story at hand in such a way that we win the reader over with our academic argument.

In this sense when, as we are currently doing, we want to combine findings from both qualitative and quantitative work, this emphasis on the overarching story – can help us consolidate the work of these two diverse approaches.

AES

Salovey, P. (2000). Results that get results: Telling a good story. In R.J. Sternberg (Ed.), Guide to Publishing in Psychology Journals (pp. 121-132). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

For me, qualitative data is like seeing the world through someone else's eyes. When I first read the transcripts, I have no desire to analyze, understand or explain... I just allow myself to "see" the interview through the interviewee's responses. I think students, and those new to the process of qualitative analysis, know that they must do something with the responses, and they rush to define what was said, rather than listening to what was said and what was left unsaid. It is rather like reading poetry. Either one can listen for the words, the cadence, and the tone; or one can try to identify the iambic pentameter, rhymes, etc.
Qualitative analysis demands that the researcher “hear” what the subjects are saying. Several subjects may use the word “slow” in relationship to a Dr. visit. If the researcher simply is counting words or looking for similar words, He/she would miss the fact that slow for one subject is a positive: “the Dr never rushes, he is slow and deliberate” and another subject sees slow as a negative: “he never starts on time, he is always slow to his appointments with me”.
I hope students and others can see qualitative research as seeing the shared experience of the subjects. It is about experience, not numbers or quantity. I love experiencing the world through someone else’s eyes, learning how they see something inspires me to take an extra step during the day to stretch my way of knowing the world.
MG

Summary Week 7

This week students have been transcribing and coding their qualitative data. It is interesting to see how they approach this task for the first time. Even though we provided instructions, some have had a hard time understanding that you must have every word the person utters in the transcript. You need everything there in order to begin understanding the meaning of what they have said. It is not what the researcher thinks they mean – you want to get at what they actually said.

We made the offer for any students that are interested, of preparing a poster using some of the data for the Walden winter research symposium. So far, five students have expressed an interest. I think it is terrific opportunity to put together some data and see what the process is like.

I would like to publically thank Dr. Sickel for her help in the last two weeks! Dr. Giles and I have been teaching at Walden’s new virtual residency – which required considerably more time than we anticipated. Dr. Sickel kindly handled a lot of the classroom work for us, thus reducing our stress considerably. I think the virtual residency has a lot of potential, but doing anything for the first time ever – can be frustrating. We found many bugs and it required some modification in teaching techniques from the original plan. We are scheduled to teach at the next virtual residency in two weeks, hopefully this one will go smoother.

Lee Stadtlander

How much to help out?

I would like to pick up on a comment Dr. Stadtlander made in her recent blog, about how challenging it can be to know how much to help the students versus doing parts of the work ourselves. I whole heartedly agree with Dr. Stadtlander in that I often find myself debating as to how many questions I ask of our students so as to stimulate their critical thinking versus my own wanting to provide the answer so that we in fact get to the answer. I hope you will excuse this analogy, but it reminds me greatly of parenting! I go through something similar to this with our nine year old daughter. Granted, my questions meant to foster my daughter's critical thinking are more in line with: 'What do *you* think would be a healthy snack?' or 'What do *you* think it means to be a good friend' - but you get my point.

It can therefore be hard to know if/when students are getting what they need. Consequently, I find it helpful to hear from students in multiple venues (via blog, conference calls, emails, jounral entries, and in the classroom).

Another challenge I see in our work at this time is that we are working on qualitative data analysis which is much less structured, in my humble opinion, than is quantitative work. As a result of this, students can find this part of the work unclear so we continue to do our best to anchor the qualitative data analysis tasks at hand.


AES

Summary Week 6

This week students began the qualitative analysis of our data by transcribing four questions from their interviews. As Dr. Sickel mentioned in her post this week, this is a very hands on way to examine data and gives you an opportunity to carefully consider how the participants felt about their health provider and how they described him or her.

We had a lab meeting via the GotoMeeting software Tuesday evening, students had the opportunity to ask questions about all of the data analyses and the faculty were able to also to get a feel for areas in which students needed more help. I think this is such a critical aspect of the lab – getting a chance to talk to the students and let them ask questions in the lab meetings.

The faculty have been working on the syllabus for next quarter, when the students will be writing up the manuscript for submission to a journal. We have been struggling with the question of where the line is between student guidance and doing it ourselves. It is a gray area that we have constantly debated, and becomes critical when we will be putting our names on the article too. A great example of this gray area was with the quantitative data analyses, we decided that we would have them spend a few weeks running some small analyses in their area of expertise then I would run the full analyses, which we will use later. We want them to have the experience of data analyses and writing but know that we are there if there are issues and that we will double check their work.

Qualitative Data Analysis

Our mixed methods design can be considered a convergent parallel design (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011). At present, our students are focusing on the qualitative data collection and considering how one might go about analyzing it.
One question we have asked our oldest old participants is: What is your relationship like with your primary health provider now?

The quant part of me wants to reduce this/shape this to how long have they had this relationship? How often do they see him/her? On a scale of one to ten – how much would they say they liked the provider?

Since that is not our objective with this question, the task is to look at all of the text we have from all participants on this question, pull it together and let the data inform us. Creswell and Plano Clark (2011, p. 207) talk about coding these data. We do this by breaking the words down into meaningful units (not numbers) and then looking at what these units depict overall.

This of course, is much closer to real life, since we rarely ask our peers if they would describe their work satisfaction, for example, on a scale of 1-10 but rather ask them how they might like their job or particular aspects of it. We might then detect disappointment or excitement as a theme in our peer’s answer about work satisfaction. This simple change in question format lets our peers speak freely, unconstrained and can indeed provide a richer response than a number on a scale. We are not deducting via numbers but rather inducting possible themes originating from individual personal experience. In this way, qualitative research can be thought of as more expansive than quantitative research.

While there are software programs that will do this coding for us, our students are working on coding a few questions from the data they actually collected. In this way, I also find qualitative analysis much more hands on than quantitative work whereby the researcher really gets an active feel for the data in its raw form.

Neat!

AES

Creswell, J.W. & Plano Clark, V.L. (2011). Designing and conducting Mixed
Methods Research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Responsibility and mental health/illness

One student's post this week reminded me of an article I just happened to read last week on the perception of responsibility and that we humans may create social distance when we perceive someone else as responsible for their mental health problems/illness (Feldman & Crandall, 2007). It seems we are more socially comfortable with others who have a mental health problem that we believe is beyond the individual's control.

This is one time that I find quantitative methods quite limiting and where I really want to ask a subset of the sample questions about what 'responsibility' means and what it means for an illness or condition to be beyond one's control; more importantly, why *precisely* does this matter?

In our current study, this issue of responsibility takes on curious meaning. Are we responsible in a good way or in a bad way for the fact that we have aged? Are we personally responsible for the increased reliance we then have on healthcare? When we age, generally speaking, we depend more on others. Again, I find myself thinking it odd that there could be a shelf life, so to speak, for how we 'value' others and the elderly, in particular. While intellectually I can understand the research we are reviewing and creating, I must admit I find it a bit humbling, as well.

AES


Feldman, D.B. & Crandall, C.S. (2007). Dimension of mental illness stigma: What about mental illness causes social rejection? Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 26(2) 137–154.

Summary Week 5

This week students have been finishing up the SPSS portion of the project and reporting on additional articles. I met with several students in gotomeeting  and helped with SPSS issues. I spent a day checking the data they entered into SPSS and found quite a few errors. They have now been corrected, so we can be more confident of the data we analyze.  I did an analysis of the demographic data and the survey measures. I will report it in the lab next week.

The instructors met this week and decided to alter the syllabus for the rest of the quarter. We have decided that since the transcription is going slow – we need a contingency plan so students can start on the interview data. We decided to have the students transcribe 4 interview questions from their participants that have the potential of providing interesting data.  

Lee Stadtlander

Summary Week 4

This week students have been working on their data analyses and struggling to remember how to use SPSS. They have begun to make connections between different variables and literature; it is exciting to watch them gain a deeper understanding.

In our lab meeting this week I talked a little about the idea that research should be enjoyable and interesting. I think it is an important reminder that sometimes you need to take a step back from the intensity of data analyses and theory and just enjoy the intellectual challenge. It is fun to realize that you can get answers to your questions in the data sitting in front of you. Sometimes the answers are no (it is not statistically significant), but you now know more than you did before!

It is also important to remember that just because you did not find statistical significance in your sample – it does not necessarily follow that you could not find it in a larger or different sample. Keep track of those ideas that you have and test them again in later studies. Sometimes as researchers we forget that our samples are really not a random selection from the population (even though we hope that is true), these were the people that were willing to participate. Those individuals who were not willing to be a part of the study may be quite different.

This point became very clear this past week when we asked our lab students to give us more info about their minority recruitment. We only had a few minority participants, and wondered how many minorities were contacted to be participants in the study. It appears that many were contacted but refused to be interviewed or to offer possible referrals. So we must be cautious in interpreting our results, they may not apply to non-Caucasians.

Lee Stadtlander

Enjoying the research process

We had a lab meeting this week which was a refreshing reminder for me of the need to slow down and enjoy the research ride a bit.

As we discussed lab business with our students, it was apparent that the students found it challenging to sift through, if you will, the literature without having a concrete plan as to where to go in that process of sifting. We are fortunate to have such diligent students in our lab, to be sure. This reminded me, however, of the need we (as humans of course but also as researchers) have to live with ambiguity at times.

Some parts of research are vague and unclear, at best. When we are trying to get a handle on the literature in a particular area/relative to a particular set of relationships or constructs, sometimes we have little to no idea where we are or where we/the literature will end up. I may have preconceived notions about relationship A-B before I dive into that literature and then once I do dive, find out the relationship is more like B-A and perhaps I also need to consider the impact of C, D, and E.

It can be disarming and overwhelming to do literature searches particularly if we are at the start of a new topic. At first, I try to enjoy the blank canvass before me. As the canvass becomes less blank while I read and learn, I consider the given literature a to be a big puzzle. Sometimes these literatures turn out to be more like thousand piece jig saw puzzles and sometimes more like a few hundred pieces. Either way, I find it is important to let the discovery happen. Being sufficiently Type A, this does not come naturally to me, but I keep at it.

AES

Summary Week 3

This week students worked on the quantitative data analysis for the first time, conducting descriptive stats. One thing that is quite evident in the course is that students have different ways of approaching research. Some feel insecure in their understanding of statistics and need to narrowly find their way through a very select area of interest, while others want to have an overview of everything, including how we will go about the qualitative analysis and the coding we will use. Unfortunately, they are stuck with a middle ground which is easiest for the faculty – we discuss each step as it comes along. I know that this is not satisfactory for everyone, but after dealing with so many students who are lost with the most basic quantitative analysis, I simply don’t feel that it is fair to bombard them with even more information.

I have been reading Bandura’s (1997) book on self-efficacy, particularly the chapter on the elderly. Self-efficacy can be thought of maintaining control, confidence in surroundings. He brings up some interesting points to consider – such as with the elderly, high self-efficacy could be seen with an individual who works to stay active and independent. But contrast that with an individual who chooses to be dependent, and manipulates people by having them care for him or her… is this person high or low in self efficacy? Another point that interests me was regarding health care- that people in the oldest old age group grew up in a period in which it was considered appropriate to look upon the physician as an expert and not question him or her. It will be interesting to see how that plays out in our current study.

 Bandura, A. (1997). Self efficacy: The exercise of control. NY: Freeman

Lee Stadtlander

Collaboration

After spending a few days with Dr. S, I am energized, excited and "raring to go". I realize that talking about data and discussing ideas with a colleague is a very important part of research. But how to make that happen in a virtual lab? In a lab, students tend to write posts for the instructors and to fulfill the weekly assignment. And the instructors, without intent,encourage this. We need to know that the student understands the difference between and IV and a DV, how to write a hypothesis, etc. So how do we, as instructors, ensure that students are getting the knowledge base they need and still have excitement about sharing their new found ideas and thoughts?

I asked students this week to post a title for their part of the research project. Not many did, and I am wondering if it is because there is confusion and fear about what they are doing? At the end of this project, each student will have become an expert on one area of the study (think of "study" as the mass of data that is collected). They have the freedom to choose the part of the data that most attracts them and write a journal article about it. I am not sure that the research assistants really understand this. This is a big difference between this project and typical research assistant roles: they are not just collecting the data and analyzing it under the direction of the PI, but rather they get to take ownership regarding what the data means in terms of previous research in the field.

I wonder if they looked at the analysis and lit review as preparing to evaluate archival data, it would become more clear in terms of what they have to opportunity to do?
As usual, my post is more questions than answers.... and that is a clue into why I like qualitative research... each step leads to more questions and each answer leads to another thought to explore.

MG

New Learning, Part 2

For me, new learning is definitely occurring in this lab with regard to the use of qualitative and mixed methods. I was trained in quantitative methods, so qualitative methods at first seemed too loosey-goosey for my 'it must be counted' mindset. I still find myself trying to put numbers to Dr. Giles' themes and she patiently tolerates this and waits for me to 'get it' that the theme is the result and the point of the matter. The ah-ha moment eventually comes for me, but sometimes it does take a moment as I inadvertently scan my brain for scales or measures that would be appropriate.

I have students who are conducting mixed methods dissertations but for these students, I require a committee member who is an expert in qualitative methods. I have learned a lot from these experiences and often what I learn is quite humbly, that I have a lot to learn. One of my previous doctoral students conducted a study using phenomenology with plane crash survivors. There are simply no number patterns that could ever effectively or interestingly replicate my student's findings. While I still don't think I could run a study using transcendental phenomenology, I certainly know more about it than before I worked with my student and our committee members.

Realizing that we don’t know much can be, I find, very liberating. I think this is one of the reasons I like working in academia as much as I do. I find this awareness energizing and frankly, hopeful. There are always new ways to understand and approach our questions and uncertainties and qualitative/mixed methods represent this to me. I find these methods 1) allow for a much richer picture to evolve and 2) that over time I gain knowledge. As a result, I find I can tolerate the temporary discomfort my temporary ignorance brings.

Besides, some of my best friends do qualitative work ;-)

AES

Summary Week 2

This week students began exploring their variables in which they will become experts. I have been working this week to try to challenge the students to extend their thinking from the article to how it relates to our study or other potential studies. It is always fascinating to see how differently the three faculty think about various issues that arise. We feel very lucky to have a group of faculty that works so well together. I can imagine that it could be ugly to work with someone with a totally different picture of the process or different philosophy of teaching.

Students are still finishing up their interviews and getting all of their data submitted. We want to have them begin analyzing data next week. I anticipate that some students will have difficulty with this – and have offered to talk with students on skype or GoToMeeting and work with them.

Dr. Giles came to visit me this week which has allowed us to work on some of the data we have accumulated in previous studies. We have considering a new developmental theory related to oldest old. I think we both felt a little brain dead after thinking about it for many hours yesterday! It feels a little overwhelming to have accumulated so much data and trying to sort out what it means and how everything ties together.

Lee Stadtlander

Stats Phobia

This quarter, we are starting to turn our attention to the data collected last quarter. We will of course be looking both at qualitative and quantitative data but are starting with the quantitative portion.

I am reminded of what some describe as 'stats phobia' and the reluctance to engage in conversations about using statistics and what we mean to do with these tools. I was once told, by a previous mentor, that stats is the kind of field where you need to study it for a bit, before most students have that 'ah-ha' moment and it clicks - such that you understand it is truly a means to an end and not a big, awful, fearful end in and of itself. That sounds rather simplistic but I think it is true.

I am a co-leader for my daughter's brownie troop and recently, the mother of one of the brownies found out that I am familiar with statistics and have taught research design. She is in a doctoral program herself and was a bit desperate with regard to time/assignment due date, but delicately asked if I could help her with her near-due assignment; of course, I helped her think through her assignment.

This made me reluctantly recall how I first approached stats (anxiously, making it more than it was). At times, my classmates and I would nervously feed off of each other and make the whole thing worse. Only when I started accepting the term statistics as synonymous with 'tools' was my understanding able to happen.

When I think about the issue of research and the alignment of one's design (about which I wrote last week or so and about which Walden's residencies now discuss), use of statistics is just one more step in that alignment process.

We would only choose a method and data collection techniques appropriate to our question and the statistics we choose to use in turn, fit with the measures we have employed and the intentions demonstrated in our hypotheses and questions. We would not use a regression, for example, if what we want to do is test group differences. So the alignment process continues with the statistics we choose. As a result, I have come to pleasantly see the statistics I choose as an organic, if you will, evolution based upon the question/s at hand and therefore as quite harmless ;-)

AES

New learning

I am finding it very interesting that, as this quarter begins, I am learning a new language. Wile I have always wanted to learn Swahili, this quarter I am learning the language of quantitative analysis. And it is a new language!! I tend to think in circular ways and qualitative analysis comes easy to me. I look at what is being said and can "see" themes emerge. I do not easily see measurement, numbers, what is predicting what, or what is influenced by what. I tend to look at data in terms of questions. If X changed, would Y remain the same? If X is present, is Y higher or lower? If X and Y are present is Z also present?
And yet, that is analysis... it is simply a different way of phrasing it. But if I am looking at doing quantitative analysis, I need to know the terms to make myself understood by others. I cannot ask other researchers to learn my language just so they can understand my findings.

And back to Swahili... if I go to Tanzania, I can state things in English and hope others understand or I can learn the language and know they will understand....Mimi ni kujifunza

Research Design & Alignment - Choice of Variables

As Dr. Lee mentioned, this week we are navigating first steps in clarifying the IV-DV distinction within our research. As a quantitatively trained researcher, this distinction is crystal clear to me. As Dr. Lee notes, this is not always the case for students who don't share my comfort level with such quantitative language. Further, we really don't use these terms (IV and DV) when we are using qualitative 'speak' - qualitative researchers don't use variables in this same way and do not reference IVs and DVs (Creswell, 2009; Creswell & Clark, 2011). Since we are using mixed methods here, we need to be familiar with both approaches!

Sticking with the IV-DV distinction for the moment, the variables we choose to study and which we identify as either an IV or a DV are really quite pivotal when we think about the overall design and alignment of that research design. The IV and DV stem from our study hypotheses which in turn stem from our research questions, which in turn stem from the social issue/problem at hand and the corresponding gap in the literature - something like:

social problem/issue > gap in literature/use of theory > research questions > study hypotheses > distinct variables to be operatioinalized

These IV and DV variables in turn, dictate the measures we choose to operationalize the variables which in turn inform the analyses we run, such as:

variables > measures/surveys chosen > type of analyses run

So the identification of one's IVs and DVs is pivotal in that it informs us both about the research questions and study basis as well as giving us strong hints as to the kinds of measurement and analyses we will use.

Constructs and variables as used for qualitative research questions do not follow this particular path, as demonstrated in the Creswell references.

In keeping with my type-A side, I feel compelled to comment that in correlational research, we often use the terms *predictor* variable and *criterion* variable to denote, correspondingly, the IV and the DV (Jaccard & Becker, 2010, p. 451).

AES

Creswell, J.W. (2009). Research Design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. (3rd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Creswell, J.W. & Plano Clark, V.L. (2011). Designing and conducting mixed methods research. (2nd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Jaccard, J. & Becker, M.A. (2010). Statistics for the behavioral sciences (5th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Summary Week 1

This first week of quarter 2 we have been spending a great deal of time on clarity of language. What does a dependent or independent variable mean in the context of our study? When the faculty say they want each student to become an expert on a variable – what EXACTLY does that mean? Inevitably when instructors give instructions (which we thought were so clear!), we discover that they are murky for people unfamiliar with the topic.

I think this entire issue is one of the major challenges of teaching and conducting research online – you must be willing to acknowledge that your and others’ language may be imprecise; which means negotiating until you both agree on what is needed. I recall one of the interview questions we asked potential students was – if they were given unclear instructions by one or more faculty – how would they handle it? All of the students we selected understood the importance of clarifying, and we have tried to emphasize this throughout our lab – if you do not understand something – ask us again!

Which brings me to an important issue for faculty – you must be open to being questioned by online research students. Yes, you are the “expert”, but you also have to accept that you will have to explain and justify your actions and comments. This can be a big shock to faculty coming from a traditional brick and mortar school – traditionally faculty do not justify. But in the virtual environment you are working with nontraditionally aged students, and they want and need to understand the logic behind procedures and directions.

So my take home message for students: be patient too! Yes, you would like everything to be crystal clear the first time through, and we faculty certainly try, but when we are not: be kind and negotiate the language.

Lee Stadtlander

The lovely time between quarters

This is a nice time for instructors, typically - and perhaps for students as well, in that it gives me a moment to pause. This week I am reviewing my summer quarter work and readying classrooms and am taking stock in lessons learned from this summer so as to inform my fall quarter plans. I am trying to get caught up on loose ends and am enjoying the relatively quiet meeting schedule this week. Having been off for a few days does put a crimp in my normal 'pause' but it is still a nice downshift none-the-less.

I am looking forward to fall quarter and working with our students on analyzing both quantitative and qualitative data. Perhaps I am a tad biased, but I cannot, again, help but think how much I would have loved such an opportunity in my graduate training.

AES

Between quarter thoughts

This week we are officially on break and students have been using the time to get caught up on their interviews. This past week I sent out the end of quarter Research Knowledge and Research Outcomes surveys to both the lab and control group students. I will report to you on this when all surveys are in. This brings up a point that I would like to address today – the problem of participants not actually reading survey instruments. Often as a researcher you may strongly suspect that a person has not actually read the survey – all answers given are the same throughout the survey. This is particularly the case when there are several questions that are reversed scored (where the expected answer should be the opposite of other answers), it really raises questions on the validity of your results. I sent emails to several students asking them to double check their answers because of just this issue. There are still a couple of surveys I really wonder about, but there is little more that can be done from the researcher perspective.

What are the responsibilities of a participant? We assume that people are reading the information that we give them. We also assume that they are being honest in their responses. But truly there is no way to know if either of these assumptions is correct. This is one of the limitations of survey work, and it is important to always keep this in back of your mind as a researcher.

Next week we start the second quarter of the project. We are asking each student to become an expert in one of our variables, they will read articles each week on the variable and how it relates to the oldest old and report back to the rest of the lab. By the 3^rd week of the quarter we should start analyzing the quantitative data in SPSS. Each student will concentrate on their expertise area until we are ready to start correlating various variables together.

Lee Stadtlander

Week 12 Summary

We have made it to the final week of the quarter! I thought I would take this opportunity to summarize what has been done this quarter and some of the highlights for me.

Students spent several weeks learning about research issues with the oldest old, and about interviewing techniques. The training was more difficult than expected, requiring additional practice interviews by the students. Also, the faculty recorded some practice interviews which were available for student review. We have carefully critiqued each recording as it has come in which has proved to be necessary and effective in catching problems early in the process.

As of this date we have 18 good interviews, which is exciting! We have allowed students to continue their interviews into next quarter, because of the lengthy training and recruiting time. We are really hoping for 35-40 good final interviews. Most students have been entering their data into SPSS as we go, which is a great experience for them. They typically don’t really have an opportunity to work with real data until their dissertation, so having a supervised opportunity is a bonus.

As supervising faculty, we have really enjoyed the close interaction with the students; it has been a joy to watch them develop as researchers. I am very glad that we had three instructors; it made the supervision much easier and less stressful. We have, sadly, lost a couple of our researcher to illnesses and being over extended. I am not sure how we can prevent this in the future. We screened each student carefully and forewarned them of the time commitment, but the unforeseen occurs.

I was thrilled to see one student mention in her final post of the quarter that she learned that one must “expect the unexpected” in research. This is such a key bit of knowledge about research that so many student researchers do not understand. Anything can and does happen when doing research – people cancel at the last minute, equipment malfunctions, forms are more complex than anticipated, etc. Researchers must be prepared and be creative in solving whatever problems arise.

In terms of assignments and procedures, a number of students have mentioned that they liked both the weekly journal papers and having the blog available. In the journal papers, each student wrote weekly about how they felt about the supervision and questions and issues that had arisen for them. It gave the faculty insights into their experience that we otherwise would not have gained. The blog has in turn, given the student insights into the faculty’s thoughts and provided a different view of the research process for the students.

We are ready to set up the lab classroom for fall. For those following along with us, we are requiring the Creswell and Plano Clark (2011) text and Sternberg (2000). I have recommended that students read over break Snowdon (2002) – a great, easy to read book that discusses the process of doing research with the elderly.

Creswell, J. W. & Plano Clark, V.L. (2011) Designing and conducting mixed methods research, 3^rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage

Snowdon, D. (2002). Aging with Grace: What the Nun Study Teaches Us About Leading Longer, Healthier, and More Meaningful Lives. Bantam

Sternberg, R.J. (2000). Guide to publishing in psychology journals. NY: Cambridge Press.

Lee Stadtlander

The Devil is in the Details :-)

As our interviewers march forward and collect their four interviews, we continue to review their work to check for quality and adherence to required standards. It is no small task to locate potential participants, contact them, and eventually secure the interview. It is perhaps not surprising then, that by the time we get to the actual interviews - they are a bit of a relief, given how much work it took just to get to this point!

This said we need to remember to pay attention to detail when we are interviewing/collecting and recording data. As others have noted, the interviewer is in a unique position to obtain quality data (MacLin & Calder, 2006). As our protocol is about one hour long – there are a lot of seemingly minute steps to take before the data can be considered ‘collected’ and it is important to pace oneself while collecting so as to be sure we have done the best we can at this. Not only do all lines/spaces for data entry need to be clearly filled in, but it is helpful to see notes taken in the margins of the raw data so that we can get a more comprehensive look at our participants.

Data work, including data entry can be impacted by a variety of factors (Marson, Taylor, Ashby, & Cassell, 2005) – including training. Hopefully, the feedback we are providing our RAs will tighten our data collection and overall quality. Making sure we dot our i's and cross our t's is not as fun as interviewing itself and it is not as glamorous, so to speak, as seeing one's name in a journal publication or being able to describe the study that we have 'completed'. Detailed, precise data collection, however, *is* a necessary evil in order for the latter two events to occur and I would argue, it is the best way to respect the time and effort our participants have donated.

AES

MacLin, M.K. & Calder, J.C. (2006). Interviewers’ ratings of data quality in
household telephone surveys. North American Journal of Psychology,
8(1), 163-170.

Marson, R., Taylor, D.M., Ashby, K. & Cassell, E. (2005). Victoria Emergency
minimum dataset: Factors that impact upon the data quality. Emergency
Medicine Australasia, 17(2), 104-112.

Summary Weeks 10 & 11

Sorry for neglecting the blog - life got complicated for me! I got home from visiting my daughter and new grandson and we then have had company. They had never been to Montana, where I live, before so we had to do the tourist thing.

In the lab in week 10 we introduced the idea of having students pick an article related to our study and aging. While the articles were very good, we had some problems with getting students to give sufficient detail in their posts. So in week 11 we required that they follow the same structure as our earlier article report form. This seems to be working much better! This week's discussions have been interesting, because I have been trying to get the students to think beyond the article they are reviewing and to speculate on related issues. For example, one students discussed an article set in Japan, we had her speculate on how she thought things would be the same or different in the US. It is important for students to get out of the mindset that everything is done with a particular article. Science is based upon building on previous research, and students need to begin to think about how the results might change by altering different variables.

So far we have 13 completed interviews that look great! Nine have been sent to the transcriptionist so far. We had 2 students who didn't quite follow the directions and will have to redo the interviews. Hard for me to waste participants, but that is the way of research. The quarter is wrapping up, next week is the final week of the quarter and our last conference call of the quarter. We have decided that students will have to have all 4 of their interviews completed by the beginning of the third week of the next quarter so we can have them begin to analyze data. It will be exciting to see how things come out!

Aging and the Importance of Choice

We recently had a family member pass away. She was in her early 80's and had been having serious health problems for the past year or two. One of the complications from her problems was that her ability to eat was compromised. Earlier in her decline, she and her husband made the choice *not* to inject nutrients through a pump to be inserted within her stomach. Instead, they chose the more labor intensive route of making all of her food (solids/liquids) a consistency somewhere in-between. Ultimately, this contributed to her health demise, because she lost considerable weight and nutrition consumption.

What struck me about this was that she and her husband *chose* this path, knowing it would further hinder her decline. They did so with the understanding that inserting a pump and having the husband inject liquid nutrients was 'no way to live'.
The funeral services for this woman were pleasant in the sense that everyone seemed to know/appreciate that her passing was coming and indeed, everyone was grateful that she was no longer suffering.

This highlighted for me, the powerful, powerful presence of choice in our lives and how fortunate we are if we can maintain that choice throughout our lives.


AES

Week 9 summary

The 9th week was a difficult one (evidenced by this late post!). I have been traveling, Dr. Marty has been busy and Dr. Amy got stuck doing most of the work in the lab (thanks for covering for me, Dr. Amy!). Students were quite philosophical as Dr. Amy's blog post mentioned. The article brought out a lot of concerns about parents and the elderly in general, I think it is important that students have such a mechanism as the discussion board to vent their feelings and concerns.

We have 8 finished interviews, although we are still waiting on paperwork on some of them. I sent off the first batch of interviews to the transcriptionist which makes it feel more official. It is exciting to be getting in data, I am having the students enter their own data in SPSS. So far, things have been going well with it.

Lee Stadtlander

Ageism

This week, we have been having an interesting dialog about the assigned reading from Baltes & Smith (2003) whose final line of the abstract provides a reasonable summary of the thrust of their article, when they write:

"Future study and discussion should focus on the critical question of whether the continuing major investments into extending the life span into the fourth age actually reduce the opportunities of an increasing number of people to live and die in dignity " (Baltes & Smith, 2003, p. 123).

This article has stimulated provocative commentary from our RAs as the authors are discussing the issues of quality of life relative to social and technological attempts to extend lifespan. In one post, a student used the term 'stigma' which got me thinking about ageism, as one potential product of stigma.

According to Nelson (2009) 'Ageism is defined as prejudice against anyone based on his or her age' (p. 432). Nelson continues to define both malignant ageism and beningn ageism; the former is when we can sense in someone/some entity we are observing 'an extreme dislike toward the older person' and the belief that 'the older person is worthless'(p. 432). In contrast, benign ageism occurs when we 'view the older person through prejudice and stereotypes due to (our) own feelings of fear of aging' (p. 432).

A point Nelson makes, which I find particularly intriguing, is that apparently we are more likely to report negative attitudes against older individuals in general yet when we are asked to discuss attitudes toward an older individual we know (e.g. our grandparent, elderly relative/friend), our attitudes are more positive. The author notes that research in this area is young, so we must consider such findings in this light (Nelson, 2009).

I cannot help but wonder if ageism, in either form, is something we can actually reduce? We understand a good bit more about the stereotype process and about the relationship between stereotypes and discrimination than we did earlier (Stangor, 2009; Gaertner & Dovidio, 2009). To the extent to which our stereotypes about the aged reflect our own fears about aging, I am unsure - can we/ are we willing/able to confront such fears enough to address ageism as a social issue?

AES

Baltes, P.B. & Smith, J. (2003). New frontiers in the future of aging: From
successful aging of the young old to the dilemmas of the fourth age.
Gerontology, 49, 123.135.

Gaertner, L, & Dovidio, J.F. (2009). A common ingroup identity: A categorization-
based approach for reducing intergroup bias. In T. Nelson (Ed.), Handbook
of Prejudice, Stereotyping,and Discrimination ( pp. 489-506). New York,
NY: Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Nelson, T.D. (2009). Ageism. In T. Nelson (Ed.), Handbook of Prejudice,
Stereotyping,and Discrimination (pp. 431-440). New York, NY: Taylor
and Francis Group, LLC.

Stangor, C. (2009). The study of stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination with
social psychology: A quick history of theory and research. In T. Nelson
(Ed.), Handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping,and Discrimination (pp. 1-
22). New York, NY: Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Blog Survey

The survey will close this Friday. If you have not already done so, we invite you to participate in the survey. It should take about 20 minutes to complete and is anonymous. We really need your input! For those of you who have taken the survey: Thank You so much!!!!

Again, we appreciate your help in this new type of research.
MG

Summary Week 8

This week students have been working on their interviews - we now have data from 4! It has been difficult for the instructors to keep up while traveling, attending faculty meetings, and commencement, but we did have some great discussions about research and were certainly thinking about the lab!

We had our poster session on Wed. 7/27, it went well, but it wasn't until we were there that it occurred to us that students would not really be interested in our sampling method! Oh well, we did have some administrators and faculty come by and talk about it.

I thought that I might talk briefly about the importance of marketing your research, such as at poster sessions. If you are faculty it is important that others (i.e., administrators) be aware of your work - particularly if you want other faculty to have the opportunity to learn from your mistakes and successes. For students, faculty can provide some interesting ideas in a poster session, and it is great experience. For everyone wanting to be in research, it is important to get your name and abilities out their as a working researcher, there aren't many out there and you want to be counted as present!

Lee Stadtlander

Data Quality

I have been thinking a bit this week about the issue of data quality; as our RAs are now wrapping up practice interviews and are starting the main interviews for our research. Research, much like graduate school in general, requires considerable attention to detail, organization, and the ability to sew together parts into a cohesive whole. A veritable feast for the Type-A's among us ;-) Once we get these research protocols down enough to start the main interviews, it seems like a good time to remind ourselves and think about data quality. It is truly not enough to get through such interviews/protocols - to just get them done. We need to be sure that while maintaining standards in research with human participants, we are mindful of how easily and even unintentionally, data can be distorted.

We need to be true to the measurement standards and be sure that our overall interactions with participants are professional. I can readily remember some really challenging interviews that I would rather one of my peers have taken as well as those interviews where my participant was remarkably kind and good spirited. For me, the trick was always to walk that very fine line between collecting quality data and yet still recognizing and enjoying the personal benefits of conducting research interviews.

AES

Summary Week 7

This week students have been finishing up their last practice interview and starting on their 4 official interviews. Some data is starting to come in! Now is the time for organizing everything and putting protocols in place to make sure a faculty member reviews each interview and we do not lose any data.

I am assigning each student to a faculty member who will review all four of the student’s interviews. The faculty will provide comments and be the quality control that each interview is done correctly. I am also keeping a spreadsheet to keep track of who has submitted what and whose interviews have been approved. I have also set up a flash drive where I will save everything and back it up once a week.

I will submit the recordings to the transcription that we will be using weekly. This is complicated by the invoicing process required through the grant. I use a service that works with many people so we will have to get our work in line to be done.

We have decided to have the students enter their own data in SPSS. I set up the file this week with all of the variables labeled. Students will send me a copy of their paperwork so I can double check their data entry. It is great experience to have to enter the data and get a feel for how the file is set up. 

Next week will get complicated because all three of the faculty will be attending faculty meetings in Minneapolis. We are also doing a poster session with the data on our new sampling method (see earlier blog posts, if you want details). On Tuesday we will have our 4^th lab conference call on GoToMeeting. Wednesday we leave for MN. The lab meeting will cover a few areas of concern that have come up in reviewing the recordings, any issues on participant recruitment and the interviews, and we will discuss some plans for next quarter and doing data analysis.

Lee Stadtlander

Psychological Measurement: Good Enough Fit?

An issue that has arisen is that of how well a survey (in this case, a quantitative measure) 'fits' if you will, with individual perception. What do we do, for example, when we have chosen our valid and reliable measure that operationalizes our construct of interest only to find that when we actually give the assessment, our participants seem to balk at certain questions. Participants may, for exmaple, want to/want you to rephrase the question or perhaps give you a non-score (e.g. a 0/zero) when the response format ranges from +3 to -3 with no zero to be found.

This is a challenge we all face. While it is tempting to want to change such measures take a moment to think about doing so and what this really means. We have chosen our reliable and valid measures for that very reason...they are tested with solid psychometric properties. If we change the response format or questions in any way - we do indeed change our psychometrics and therefore should have much less confidence in our findings and have concerns about potentially spurious results.

Is it possible, therefore, that our items and response format can be 'good enough' and that we therefore must leave these items as-is, for the sake of our data collection? I would argue yes. What we can do, however, is help the participant understand the essence of the question, relative to the construct at hand. So if a question in our resilience or LOC scale asks us to rate a statement on our leadership skills and our participant states 'I am not a leader' - instead of getting caught up in semantics, it might be helpful to step back a moment and help the participant understand that in this case (and this depends of course, on the construct and specific operationalization thereof...) we are talking generally or even hypothetically - if the participant cannot identify a specific area of leadership.

Sadly, our psychological assessments are far from perfect. When we discover issues like this - it serves to higlight the importance of assessment development. The other nice thing about this is that once we discover this, we have uncovered a potential gap in the literature - an area that may warrant additional research attention.

AES

Thoughts

We are getting responses to our survey on the blog. Thank you to all of you who have made the time to take the survey. There is a lot of research going on right now regarding social networking and blogging in relation to education. Since we are an online University, I am quite interested in how these types of interactions may help support learning. The survey was developed to look at what works and what doesn't work from a more general perspective. Does reading someone's thoughts and process inform the reader on how to conduct research? Do students learn more than other's when reading this type of blog? So many questions and if I were to put them all in the survey we would have the longest survey in history :)

It seems that the more tools we have the more confusing learning becomes. We talk about scholarly sources in research, but when one Googles a topic there are a million things that come up. Some are scholarly, some help to understand a topic but aren't scholarly, and some are just "junk". I wonder how students navigate all those different resources. I also wonder which tools are most beneficial to learning and why. The research right now points to small studies where the blog is designed to work with students in a specific course. I am wondering if there isn't a way that blogs, twitters, facebooks, and the like, can actually help students to develop skill sets necessary to write dissertations, do research, and develop proposals.

We have so much information available on our computers...do we need to develop specific skill sets just to wade through it all?
MG

Week 6 Summary

This week we had our first lab meeting with the GoToMeeting software - it worked great! I think everyone is very relieved that we have something that works for conference calls and also lets everyone share a computer screen. It let me show students an example of an ecomap and word documents. I am excited to try it next quarter when we get to the data analysis portion of the project, and we can all do quantitative and qualitative analyses together.

Students are working on their final practice interviews with an older adult this week. The faculty will review each one and (hopefully) give the student permission to go on to the real interview. Next week we may be starting to get some data!

As hopefully you have seen, we are asking readers of the blog to take a short survey. Why are we doing this? There are several reasons. One, we would like to get a feel for the usefulness of the blog not only for our student researchers but also for others who are reading it. Two, a research blog, particularly one that is associated with an online lab is a new, cutting edge phenomenon. We would like to be able to publish an article on the use of the blog, but need to get clear understanding of what you, the reader, are getting out of it. You probably are not aware of it – but we have around 100 readers of the blog everyday! Which leads to the third reason for the survey, we would like to know what you like and don’t like it in it, so we can make sure we are answering your needs.

So why should you take the survey, if you have not done so (and if you have, thanks!)? You have been reading about research – here is a chance to be a participant and see what it feels like. We will also share our findings with our readers at the end of the project; you will be able to get a feel for how your opinions are similar or different than others’.

Which brings me to the final point I would like to make this week, several people have mentioned they hesitate to ask questions or make comments in the blog because “they are just students” or “I just like to hear about the project.” We are doing the blog for you, the reader; we would love to hear your questions or thoughts. As I mentioned in the lab this week, there are really no “right” answers (or questions) when we look at research articles or the blog. You come to this moment with a unique perspective and insights that perhaps we have not previously considered. Who knows your ideas may shape our next project or lead you to ideas for a dissertation!

Lee Stadtlander

Taking the Surveys Ourselves

RAs in lab this week are taking one of our protocol surveys themselves and it is informative to hear first hand student opinion of the surveys we are actually using. In my humble opinion, taking measure ourselves before using them is almost always a good idea so that not only can we familiarize ourselves with the content of these measures but also, so that we get a sense as to what the *experience* of taking them is all about. It is one thing to know what the questions ask but quite another to have to answer them ourselves. In our case, our RAs are much younger than our participants so there is always the added challenge of factoring that into our perceptions. I cannot help but wonder how our research literature may have changed, had every researcher in the past, done this. For example, I wonder how the Stanford Prison Study (Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo, 1973) may have been different if Phil Zimbardo had actually served in the role of 'prisoner'? (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKW_MzREPp4) ;-)


AES

Haney, C., Banks, W., & Zimbardo, P. (1973). Interpersonal dynamics in a simulated prison. International Journal of Criminology and Penology, 1, 69-97.

Please help us with a short survey

Transparent Lab survey
As you all know, this blog is about the development and implementation of research projects. We would like to take this opportunity to do a study on how a blog about research impacts readers of the blog. We (Drs. Giles, Stadtlander and Sickel) would like to invite you to participate in a short qualitative study about this blog. We will post an invitation to the study at the beginning of each of the next 4 quarters, and encourage you to participate each time. At the beginning of the survey, you will be asked to select a 4 digit number that means something to you - such as the last 4 digits of your phone number. We are hoping to track people over time without knowing their name or any personal information, though we are limiting the survey to adults over the age of 18. While there are no direct benefits of participating, you will get an opportunity to see what it is like to be a participant in a study over time and then see the results from everyone who participates.

The survey should take no more than twenty minutes. Your consent to participate is totally voluntary and anonymous. By taking the survey you are consenting to allow us to use your answers to identify themes shared by Blog readers. The survey is truly anonymous; we will have no access to any information that will identify who you are. We appreciate your participation, but if you decide not to participate or not to participate in the future we will not know and there will be no change in your status as a blog subscriber. We will share the results of the study and the procedures within the blog at the end of the project.

Please click on the link below
Click here to take survey

How Friendly Should We Be with Participants?

An issue that has come up a few times this past week is that of being 'friendly' (i.e. chatty, etc...) with the participants we interview. Specifically, the question of 'Am I being too friendly?' has arisen.

First, it is always important to remember to review our Research with Human Participant training, whenever we are thinking about interactions with our participants.

Beyond the Human Participant training as foundation, it is important to remember that how we interact with our participants/interviewees *does* matter. Plenty of research demonstrates the considerable effect an interviewer can have on the interviewee (see: Davis, Couper, Janz, Caldwell, & Resnicow, 2010; Hilliard & Macan, 2009; Hoffman, 2008; Kirkevold & Bergland, 2007).

Why? How? Well, think about your interactions with others and with others who may be interviewing you for some reason. How might you respond if someone interviewing you acts more like a pal or friend in the interview? How might this impact your willingness to respond truthfully? How might this impact the credibility you have for the interviewer? Interviewer characteristics and behavior impacts how your interviewer views you and our study, how he/she may respond, and can ultimately effect data quality.

This is true for both qualitative and quantitative interviewing - even though the goals of interviewing in these methodologies may differ (Creswell, 2009). As our study is a mixed methods design - we therefore must be cognizant of both approaches to interviewing. As a reminder, for those in our lab, there are plenty of resources on interviewing skills in our Course Info area.

I am thrilled to hear students asking themselves/others this question - you absolutely *should* be thinking about this.

As Dr. Giles pointed out in class this week, it may be useful to think about how you interact with your interviewees much like you would interact on a job interview; you want to be professional and pleasant and not overly 'friendly'. We want our participants to trust us, to feel safe and comfortable, and we want the best possible data quality as a product of this interaction.



AES

Creswell, J.W. (2009). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Davis, R.E., Couper, M.P., Janz, N. K., Caldwell, C. H., & Resnicow, K. (2010). Interviewer effects in public health surveys. Health Education Research, 25(1), 14-26.

Hilliard, T. & Macan, T. (2009). Can Mock Interviewers' Personalities Influence Their Personality Ratings of Applicants? Journal of Psychology, 143 (2), 161-174.

Hoffman, E. A. (2008). The emotionally challenging open-ended interview. Business Communication Quarterly, 71(3), 387-390.

Kirkevold, M. & Bergland, A. (2007). The quality of qualitative data: Issues to consider when interviewing participants who have difficulties providing detailed accounts of their experiences. International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health & Well-Being, 2(2), 68-75.

Summary Week 5

This week, students explored several survey measures that we are using in the study. They read articles about the measures and were asked to take the survey and talk about how it felt to do so.  The faculty also provided feedback on their interviews with a classmate. There were some common issues that we have seen in beginning interviewers, so I thought you might benefit from seeing them.

Slow down. People need time to think about their responses (particularly older people), so you need to provide some quiet, reflection time. When they give you a response give them 10 seconds or so to think if they have any further thoughts.

Take notes. Even if you are recording the interview and do not plan to use your notes, write down key points, names they give you, dates, etc. It will help the conversation if you can refer back to what they said previously, for example, “You mentioned that you did not like Dr. Smith earlier, how would you describe his personality compared to your present doctor, Dr. Jones?”

Keep on track. Some people are prone to going off on tangents, and may never actually answer the question that you asked. There is nothing more annoying than to go through the transcript searching for the answer to a question and realize it isn’t there!  This is also where taking notes help – if you jot down key points they mention for each question, then you are sure that they actually answered it. It is also a way to help you stay focused on the question.

Listen to your practice recordings, Yes, I know – you don’t like to hear your voice (most people don’t!), but you may discover mannerisms or tendencies that you did not realize that you do. For example, one student always said “that’s good” after each answer. The concern with offering an opinion (even if you did not mean it that way) is that the person may start responding in ways they think you want. It is better to keep neutral.

Next week we are going to try some new software for our lab meeting called GoToMeeting. It allows a webinar type of environment in which everyone can see one person’s screen and everyone is able to talk as on a conference call. I will report back on how it goes. It is rather pricey - $50 a month, but if it would let everyone get access, it would be worth it.

Lee Stadtlander