One Missing Piece

I know that there is somewhere.

My thinking patterns when it comes to doing my research in the past was like this:
I have data grounded on my everyday practice or experiences.
Then I have this need to document it to make it worth sharing to others.
Ideas and reflections of the practice go around my head and I feel that perhaps if I write about these, I would feel some kind of release and that hopefully, when I see it written down and read it, it becomes valid. All the more if somebody else reads it or listens to my presentation, then I realize, that my experience does make sense.

In the process of writing the research, I look for ways and means to elevate the way I look at the data based on my experiences. Or perhaps look at the data from another point of view where I can remove myself from the experience, analyze the experience, and go back to my practice with a different way of looking at the experience.

My EDDE 206 provided me with an opportunity to understand from a more conceptual and intellectual stance this process which I have gone through and will continue to go through as a grad student. However, in my need to figure out this QUALI Research, I need some hooks--a structure which I can fit into my thoughts and in the process find connections to my prior experiences and ideas of doing research. I need some kind of graphic organizer or skeleton so that every time I read, I can classify it or sort in some part of my brain.

It wasn't enough that I read the required readings and concentrated on 2 books I borrowed from the library. Now I borrowed 2 more. While reading research to form some kind of theoretical frame, I am also chancing upon research methods and ideas related to quali research. I do need time and I am allowing myself this time to do it. I think I needed that 1 semester to break into the distance ed mode and oil my brains once again to get into a focused mode. I felt a bit bad about myself for not pulling through and so deserved my EXT. However, I do feel a lot better as now, I have more freedom to take hold of my time, and choose topic worth pursuing over the original one.

Looking back, I think I got stuck with the methods. My initial questions were about metanalysis vs document analysis vs content analysis. I got fixated with the technicalities. I think I panicked, and thought that "perhaps my previous researches were not valid and if these were not valid howcome these were published. What did I do wrong? And I can't commit the same mistakes in the future! I have to do this next paper much better than the previous one."

But at least I got on concrete learning--the idea of research paradigms.
That's major light bulb!

Another one is this: that quali research concerns itself with meanings--the search
for it, the making sense of it, the ways of looking at it, and given these, what can be done once meanings are arrived at. That isn't a light bulb yet in my experience. But it's a switch I need to remember.

In the same way that I have to hold this close as a reminder to myself: go back to my research questions. I can easily get swayed while reviewing previous research but I always have to dig deep into my thoughts and ask: What are your questions Aleta?
Why these questions? What do you want to arrive at? Why is it important?

This process of learning I am going through I liken to be like an ongoing conversation in my brain. I know that at some point I will need my teacher to enter and perhaps tell me that this is what I've made sense so far.

Now, all the above fit in perfectly with this figure I chanced upon a book, details of which are as follows:

Book title: Conceptualizing and Proposing Qualitative Research
Author: Thomas H Schram
Publisher: Pearson Education, NJ Year 2006, page 21

"This chapter invites you to experience the creative discomfort of working from a fuzzy concern toward a researchable aim. It directs attention to what it means to pose a researchable problem and how you meaningfully engage a topic of inquiry" (p.21).

This is about engaging in a sense of a problem then moving towards a refined definition of a problem.

Ain't that a good piece to summarize my thoughts today.
It is fine to have a missing piece or missing pieces. It is all part of the process otherwise what will drive me to complete this.