Getting participants

I find recruiting participants takes a lot of energy. Next week I will begin recruiting people from the next 2 hospital sites and finishing up the first site.

Also, I am paying for the audio tapes to be transcribed. That means I had to work hard to find a format that the typist could get her program to recognise. I spent about 30 minutes working on her PC and I've sent 2 emails, with help files attached, in case she faces similar issues again. I know she said it was happening more and more often. I said that is probably because there are many audio recorders out at the moment, all of varying standards.

Meanwhile I am logging data and observations in QSR and Excel, which takes a while o do actually. Some themes are already in common and some are new when one considers the literature. Its all very interesting really.

I also finished editing Chapter 1 and will start editing the article next week. I'm also working on a review and a database. Its all pretty full on.  ¶ 4:23 pm

  Data Collection continued

I'm finding out what a green fields area my dissertation is. Many participants seem full of pent up energy or ideas about the area I am working in. I expected them to be a little bored, but they are exciting to spend time with.

I also got my last ethics clearance today, which feels great. Tomorrow I will alter whatever documents I need to and start writing to Managers about recruitment.

I also got email on a really interesting systematic review, which I'll participate in if the time line fits. On top of all this, I got another nice offer just before lunch. I think I will take it, but first though, I need to think about it overnight...  ¶ 4:35 pm

  Data Collection- the first one :)

Well yesterday was the first time I've interviewed a research participant. I know I knew him a bit, but the whole process felt a little bit daunting.

The Inter-campus shuttle bus was great for getting me to the outer suburbs. While on the bus, I checked my paperwork and audio data device. I found everything was there and fine, but I hadn't printed out the address of where I was meeting the person. Thank heavens I had read over it pretty carefully the previous day so I remembered everything about the arrangements. Next time I'll need to remember to read print outs well before the day of data collection.

All in all, the interview went quite well and took around 15 minutes. I was really pleased because the person I was talking to understood the questions and commented that they were fairly comprehensive. I felt like I had done a good job in their design.

I wrote up an interview summary on the bus during the ride home and also looked for emergent themes and commented on them. When I got to my PC I downloaded the audio file and renamed it to maintain the participant's identity and to match the paper record so I can match them up if ever there should be a need. I also backed the audio file up at home.

Next week I have another 3 interviews lined up. They are the first ones with Clinicians. I hope they go as well as the IT one did. On Saturday morning I need to line up another clinician interview and sort out how to remind people about telling participants of the research. I know they are extremely busy, but I need to sort something out.

Also I got ethics approval from my rural site yesterday.. Yaaay! The approval and interview process made me wonder whether I need to be present for any of my IT interviews at all, so I wrote and asked my supervisors. It would be lovely to do it all by snail mail. I'll have to wait for their reply though.

I have to remind my final ethics committee tomorrow or Monday to try and get approval for the research to commence. They asked me to wait two weeks and it has been almost 3 weeks on Monday.

I also work on Chapter 1 when I can. The maintenance of managing knowledge across my USB stick and two computers is amazingly hard and time consuming. I make heaps of dumb mistakes.

Off to put my data into Excel now :) I'll have to read over the Stats branch notes and think about it before I do it, but first I'll have a cup of green tea I think....  ¶ 9:51 am

  Data collection this week

Nina is home from school for a few weeks so I'm mainly working from home.

I finished the draft article and sent it to one supervisor. I will her get comments in a few weeks.

Last week I received a revised Chapter one from the other supervisor and am editing that right now. I need to self-edit Chapter three before I send it on to my LLS helper for editorial comments. Once Chapter one is finished, I also need to edit the first few chapters and the Table of Contents to ensure contents and numbering systems are consistent. They are changing all the time and I need to coordinate them.

Last week I booked my first interviews. I have 5 lined up. The absolutely first one will take place this week. I need to check my audio device before I go. I've already changed my data collection tool according to what I learned when booking the interviews.

I also got my first knock back from one of the participants I really needed. I have an alternative person in mind, and if that doesn't work then I'll try and get copies of organisational policies to replace the interview with that.

I haven't heard from all my participants yet and I think I'll need to send reminder letters to the managers doing recruitment on my behalf later on this month. Hopefully I will get one volunteer from at least 2 other segments of my population.

I hope everything goes well... back to phone calls and Chapter one now.  ¶ 10:58 am