Inquiry Conference

Okay, so it's official. I'm presenting in the Inquiry Conference on campus on Wednesday. I've known that I was accepted to present for quite some time now, but I've been vacillating a little bit about whether or not I'm really prepare or capable to adequately represent my research, and if I have the time to commit to preparing for, presenting at, and attending to the conference.

I just got back from meeting with one of the people in charge of the conference, so I have renewed confidence, although I still am slightly overwhelmed. But I feel validated in being able to address my audience of choice and to be able to be pretty raw and honest about my research process, while still being organized and refined in my presentation. That probably made no sense to anyone but me. Allow me to attempt to elaborate...

I don't have a ton of confidence in my research at present. I'm pretty realistic about my shortcomings in regards to my research. I don't consider it to be valid or reliable. I recognize that I know more about my topic specific to that region than most people, but I am also aware of the many flaws in my research. And there are enough of them, and they are significant enough that I feel that any presentation of my "findings" would not be representative of the truth. I'm pretty confident that the people I interviewed didn't understand crucial terms and also questions, based on their responses. Answers to what seemed to me to be the same questions were contradictory. And so I don't feel good about using those responses.

I learned some great things in the process that offer me insight into my research topic, and I'm grateful for that, but I also feel like I learned a lot through the process that is more true and of more worth that the other. I would rather address the potential field study participant about potential pitfalls of field research based on my experience, than I would write to an academic audience about research with does not meet academic standards. I don't want to pretend like what I found is reliable when I know that it isn't.

So, now I will present at the Conference, and I will direct my remarks to the potential field study participant. I'll be very real, but professional. I'll present my research process and experience, and using that framework, I'll highlight principles that I had to learn through experience, both failure and success alike.

For example, I'll address the challenges of working through an interpreter. I can mention her biases, I can mention questions I'd ask through her that yielded irrelevant responses, and I can mention how she didn't offer direct translation of responses. Then i can talk of how I responded to these challenges, or how I would respond to these challenges were I to return to India pursuing the same project. I can talk about my first interview and how when I posed questions with the word "value" (which was central to my research topic of intergenerational value transmission) that it was interpreted as meaning "valuables" or money. I had to recognize the inconsistency and learn proper terms and vocabulary that was suited to those I was interviewing, and to my translator. Rather than directly asking about what values these mothers want their children to internalize, I asked them to describe a good child and asked what is important for their children to be raised in "a goodly manner", using a phrase that I learned from a woman I interviewed. I can mention how I finally figured out that rather than having my translator ask questions of a nature contrary to my intended purpose, that I could address the issue without offending my translator by interviewing her and seeing how she responded to my questions so that I knew when there was a need to alter my questions.

It was suggested that I apply my research findings to a newer draft of a research proposal rather than as a report of what I found. And I like that suggestion. It is really what I would like to do with what I found: apply it to be able to legitimately find what I believe is there, but that I can't authoritatively state in good conscience.

Well, I could keep writing, but I told myself I'd only spend twenty minutes thinking about this topic before turning back to pressing assignments that need to be completed today (and some that needed to be completed last week). So...yeah. I'm presenting in a conference on Wednesday and it will essentially focus on my process of experience-based learning in the context of my field work in India. Good times.

I secretly hope that no one realizes that I'm putting this link here. But I want to have access to it. Plus, with the sound turned off...I look pretty dang good. Anyway, here is me presenting at the 10th Annual International Inquiry Conference.

http://kennedy.byu.edu/events/archive.php#inq08