October 30, 2008
Week 10 Reflections: On results and final things
After the week 9 blog postings and thoughts as well as concerns about the final product – How should it look? What should it include? – I was pleased to see some clarification with the posting of two example final projects from last year. Even though they are different than ours because they actually conducted the evaluation, they give good clues and ideas as to how it should all fit together. I had done some googling about how one might analyze data, what a Likert scale is and how to sift through open ended question answers. And I had taken a tentative start to writing the results section. After looking at the examples, I went back and added some narrative, then continued with more confidence.
Writing the results section made me take another look at each and every one of my questions in a very critical way. What key question(s) does this address? What information are you searching for by asking this question? What possible responses might it produce? How are you going to analyze the responses? Again, the process made me very glad to have those key questions to return to. And again, I was glad I’d focused on them when I initially wrote the interview, survey and focus group questions.
I did my writing this week in several sessions. After working on it for a while, I’d need to take a break and come back to it. Then I could take a fresh look at what I’d written, make some revisions, and continue writing. That speaks to its complexity and its importance. Luckily my husband is in South Dakota pheasant hunting (with a “gas saving” stop =? before and after in Wisconsin for a bit of deer hunting), so I’ve had some extra flexibility to my schedule. My Riley, however, is not feeling lucky. He has been very, very sad. He misses his dog-buddy Scout (who’s hunting with Frank) and has been spoiled since my husband retired. He’s gotten used to having someone home more often. It’s just me and Riley, and I go to work… So, I get barked at vigorously as he “tells me off” every time I walk in the door. Plus he is not sure where Scout went, but he is CERTAIN that wherever he and Frank are, they’re having FUN without him. And he’s right.
Riley Now Sad
I’m really grateful for the optional forum where we can get feedback from each other and toss around what we’ve done so far. After starting my results section, a few people posted and got responses indicating perhaps there should be more dialogue and less “listing”. Mine was kind of a mix of dialogue and lists when I began, as the instructions seemed to say to me “each question should be looked at”. So, after some thought, I went back and rewrote what I’d begun. It was good, I believe, to have looked at them in a list fashion first, as I got a feel for what they addressed and how they fit together – the interview, survey and focus group questions. That enabled me to do the rewrite more easily and hopefully better as well. I posted them in the optional forum for comments, so hopefully I’ll get some feedback. This is new territory for all of us and although I’m glad to have the examples from last year to look to, what we are doing is different in several respects. Plus, I know Kona is “out there” taking a look as well and she’ll tactfully guide and encourage us in the direction we should go! That’s “polite-speak” for, “She’ll tell us if we’re doing it wrong, without making us feel foolish.” Thanks, Kona!
Looking at those examples and some of the optional forum postings made me take another look at my timeline and a few other charts I created. I’d really like to include them in my final project, but I’m going back now and adding a little narrative to them as well. They seem to call for that and the examples are pure text… Once I get that done and I feel the rest of the final project is basically ready, I’ll start the final Discussion section.
Putting the sections we had already created, posted and revised together as a final product gave me a feeling of accomplishment and lessened thoughts of all that still needs to be done. At first, because portions had to be cut out – pre-interviews / surveys and discussions of changes made – I thought I’d “lose” so much there’d be very little left! But happily that wasn’t so, and looking again at the examples from last year, I felt secure that Cheryl had guided us well.
Fitting Some Pieces Together
