WK7 Jour

WK7 Jour Paper details: This is a suggested Journal topic for this week: Write a Journal entry on how you are organizing and tracking the data you are collecting from the data collection tool test. Make sure you format it the same way as the sample journal template attached. Template and Example by Dr. Craig Barton ================================================================== Name: Craig Barton Week No: 1 Journal Topic Theme: Think about your dissertation topic, and trace the journey you and your topic have taken to get to this point in your studies. How did you choose your topic? How did you come to choose a qualitative approach for your Dissertation? Thoughts and Observations - Story My thinking processes Reflecting back to mid 1990s, I was somewhat desperate to come up with a topic for my dissertation. I wanted something that I could gain access to while working full-time (and overtime) as an engineering professional. I wanted something that allowed me to combine my computer technology skills, my interest in research, and my interests in educational technology and instruction for adult learners. My thinking here was distracted by my urgency to find a topic and my feelings of less than when I compared myself to others in the same program who seemed to have no trouble identifying a substantive topic. Self-effacing and comparative self-assessment created a very negative mind-set for me! I happened upon an article by a major oil company that addressed their discovery of marketing cost savings by using a segmentation analysis software tool. They had mailed out a marketing advertisement to their customer base and had gotten about a 5 percent response. When they applied the segmentation tool to the demographics of their customer base, it identified about 15 percent of customers as candidates. Next time they sent mailing only to those customers and got 80 percent response. So, one use of the tool saved them ten times the cost of buying the software. I was intrigued by the idea that a software tool could yield such tenfold return on investment. I am drawn to unique opportunities that might provide high return on investment. I did a library search on the tool and segmentation analysis techniques. What I found that surprised me was the authors of the segmentation tool (CHAID) authors were social science researchers at University of Michigan during the early 1960s. Computer costs, time on task, and other computer processing demands were extensive in those days and thus they did not develop their ideas. I felt so enthused that social science researchers were the authors of the CHAID tool. I wondered why they did not continue their inquiry? I wondered what might be possible using the 1990s desktop computer technology available to me? Asking these questions stimulated my thinking about possibilities These researchers were interested in what value the demographic data from survey instruments. They literally asked the probing question What significant data might be gleamed from the demographics on survey instruments as relates to the topic theme? I felt aligned with these researchers and decided to pick up the inquiry where they left off! Segmentation analysis techniques (during 1960s 1990s) seemed to capture the attention of the business marketing industry who had the funds to support the computer costs. I wondered why more social science researchers did not pursue I asked myself the question How might segmentation analysis tools be of value to research efforts in my area of study? By asking questions to myself that seemed obvious from my development? I did additional library searches and could not find anything that linked social science research to segmentation analysis during similar period. literature reviews, I began framing a topic of study. At the time, few (if any) committees would allow qualitative or mixed methods research designs. Even in the 1990s, my institution seemed stuck in the positivist quantitative paradigm for dissertation project. I considered how to define a dissertation project and how to language it knowing the potential resistance from committee members in that school. I crafted a dissertation project that included mixed methods, used secondary data (existing dissertations from the school), linked application of segmentation analysis for social science research contribution to my school, included comparative and evaluative assessments, included purposive sampling by the Dean of the school, and potentially offered a new method for front-end exploratory research. I was intrigued by thinking how I might configure a dissertation project that addressed concerns in advance and linked values of the school, program, chair, and committee members. I likened myself to a chef tasked with preparing a stew into which each committee member wanted to include their own special ingredient (whether it added value to the taste or not). During 1997, I was so enthusiastic with finding a topic that held unusual potential (and met my considerations) the journey toward dissertation. I completed and defended (school required oral defense of comps, proposal, and final dissertation) my proposal in six weeks. I collected data and conducted analysis and completed my dissertation manuscript in eight weeks. I defended successfully December 4, 1997. I walked on December 17, 1997 although my dissertation was dated for the following mid-year graduation. I continually crafted positive and compelling selfreflective questions that pulled me forward into my project. Actually, my dissertation project journey then seemed both joyful and mostly effortless. Barton, C. D. (1998). An investigation of segmentation analysis modeling as a knowledge discovery technique for the planning and the design of instructional technology research. (Ph.D.), Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan. (ProQuest 304488470, Dissertation Number 9827183) ================================================================================