analytic methods

I have been enjoying my work with research students since i came to cqu. I am particularly interested in pinning down analytic methods earlier in research. for some reason students seem to stop short of this in their thinking about research design, and end up in a bit of a muddle.

I was very lucky in my PhD work in relation to analysis on a number of counts. I knew straight from that start that I was going to do Conversation Analysis and I had a fair understanding of what this entailed. my supervisor died at the beginning of my analysis and so I had to make my own way for quite a bit. while it wasn't easy I had a sense of what i needed to do although I wasn't very sure about how well I was doing it. so i just kept doing the analysis over and over until I thought it was as good as I could get it.

while I wouldn't recommend spending the time I did, I do believe that working away at analysis helps develop the skills needed. and since then, I've refined some of my analyses further as i've started to write articles. it's fascinating stuff (smile). so I am a bit sorry when research students rush through analysis. most seem to love data collection and analysis seems like the bit you have to do in between to get to write up the thesis. while I spent a year in a classroom I only recorded 12 hours of classroom interaction and only analysed about 35 minutes of those after first making 90,000 words of transcripts (of the 12 hours) in order to find the bit I would focus on. Those 35 minutes occupied me for about two and a half years and I reckon I could actually find enough in those 35 minutes to keep me occupied for the rest of my academic career.

Although I hope I don't do that.