Permission forms and debriefing. I handed out signed copies of the permission form you need to provide to your research participants. I role-played (thank you, Tshandi) the kind of talk you need to go through with your research participant to present the permission form, and pointed out the different places on the form that you need to sign and provide contact information.
I have posted electronic copies of the forms to the right. If you lose the signed copy - you will need to print another copy (from the link to the right) and ask me to sign it.
You will need to give one signed copy to each participant, and one collect one signed copy to give to me. You should provide me with the signed copies either before or when you begin collecting your data.
We also looked at the de-briefing form. Be sure to fill in your name, email, and phone information so that your participants can be in touch if they want to.
Form-function correlations, situated meanings, and figured worlds. During the second part of class we talked through a transcript from an interview with a Kean student who was very experienced with computers and gaming. The focus of the interview was on defining literacies and gaming practices - and whether there were any points of overlap in these definitions. We noticed in the talk between Ch and B that Ch very much wanted to identify the kinds of learning, problem solving, and social interaction associated with gaming with academic literacies, and that B was - if not reluctant to do that - then at least he was not initially seeing the connections. We noted the persuasive moves Ch made and the ways B received those moves. We also noted B's comments with respect to gaming (fooling around, for leisure & recreation, not as important as work - but at the same time it was his passion) and noted that taken together these two conflicting sets of orientations towards gaming seemed to include assumptions, values, and beliefs about video games that might come from two different figured worlds/cultural stories = one for the mainstream or standard story about of video games as a waste of time or "fooling around," and another where they are part of an identity (Discourse) for a group of people who are very good at a set of interactive practices, who see themselves as "outsiders" in some ways (at least outsiders with respect to the mainstream - maybe including school).. Ch's comments seemed directed toward linking the learning strategies in video games with literacies where literacies are ways to make meanings through practices associated with reading + writing ("that's literacy. . ." "so you know a lot of software?" etc). Her assumptions, values and beliefs about games (and literacy) seem to come from a different cultural story => one common among composition teachers and researchers who study learning and new communication technologies. So in some ways - Ch and B were using the same words = but with different assumptions, values and beliefs attached to them, so they were not really understanding each other. B would need to re-arrange the way he thought about "gamer Discourse" - in some ways - to receive what Ch was saying about gaming and literacy, and Ch needed to think about the difference B was pointing out in more detail.
At the end of class, we took a minute to do some writing/thinking about the nature of what was at stake for B to remain in his story, and for Ch to get him to change, and vice versa. Keep thinking about that one - as it brings together the three points in chapter 5 about form-function correlations (how meanings are made with "rules"), situated meanings (how the ways certain uses in particular times & places make meanings) and figured worlds - how the assumptions, values & beleifs attached to certain language and use ALSO make meanings.
For next class:
We will be working on interviewing - so come to class with some notes, ideas for the kinds of questions you want to ask your interview subject.
Blog 15: Post your best version of your research question for your final research project. Write a description of what kind of information you want to gather from your research participants, and begin a list of the kinds of questions you want to ask to gather your information.
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