Project Update 1: Reviewing Needs and Identifying Potential Participants
Planning for the Week
This week has been entirely dedicated to the final preparations that I felt that I would need to go through to be successful in the upcoming weeks. A key consideration that has come up from past assignments is that I will need to carefully consider who will be valuable as a participant, and so here I’ve determined from prior feedback and my own reflections on those prior assignments who I will be contacting to potentially participate in this study.
From Feedback
Dr. Pullman has directed a good bit of feedback in our earlier assignments to helping me narrow down potential participants for this project. In those early tasks, I employed the assistance of my roommate (a graduated M.A. in Neuroscience) and a fellow graduate student in the English department (3rd year Ph.D. candidate/student), while both of these audiences have potential, they don’t create a holistic image of the DALN’s needs. So, as I’ve been grappling with determining a solid direction for the early stages of this project, and what I’ve gathered from some of my reading, is that I would like to have multiple participants as representatives of the same overarching groups that characterize more specific identities within the personas. As a result, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’d like to have three to four participants over three categories: graduate students interested in learning more about literacy (broken down into those that aren’t familiar with the literacy studies discipline, those that are familiar with archives and archival research, and another that has some familiarity with the discipline), scholars in English studies (broken down into those that have published in the discipline, those that are familiar with modern social science research methods, and another that is an expert in archival research and development), and finally professionals outside of academic research roles that have a stake in seeing the literacy development of others (university administrators, tutors/tutoring service providers, teachers, etc.). By breaking my participants down into these three groups, I can focus on discovering information that can lead to improvements for each group independently, and provide guidance on when stakeholder needs overlap with others. For example, improved search functionality may benefit all groups, while consolidating the blog and archive sites might only have substantial benefits for teachers and administrators.
Reviewing 10 Minute Test and Interview to Determine Necessary Participants
What I saw during the 10 Minute Test and Interview was that there is a need to produce additional documentation for participants, especially when they have limited understanding of what the DALN is or what it’s used for. To this end, I will be preparing for my work with the aforementioned participants by preparing some basic documentation that will help them complete tasks associated with my user testing. I will need to create at least three handouts detailing tasks to be completed during each testing session for the different user groups, a survey that tracks current understandings of what the DALN is and what its intended purposes are, and finally a final post-test survey that takes into account novice users and frames questions with that perspective in mind (instead of “What would you change?”, a question that shows understanding that this is a new experience such as “What were some of the hurdles that you came across trying to complete X task?”). While it might be good to abandon the desire to have a completely novice participant, I think it will still be valuable to include that perspective in mind, so that other brand new users aren’t left in the dark during development.
Who I am Planning on Reaching Out to
Graduate Students
In this category, I plan on requesting the efforts of the same participants as in the 10 Minute Test and Interview as well as one new participant. Eimhear Davis and Fikko Soenanta will be able to fit into the not-familiar and somewhat-familiar categories well, and I will be consulting with Dr. Ben McCorkle and Dr. Katie Comer to see if they have anyone who will be interested in participating at Ohio State University or Portland State University. In the meantime, I will also be reaching out to one of my peers, Rachel Woods, for her experience in archival research which should provide insights into the archival make-up and approach to the project.
Scholars in English Studies
For scholars in English studies, I plan on consulting similar identities to those in the graduate students group. To this end, I plan on enlisting the help of Dr. Ashley Holmes for her prior work using the DALN in a class of hers on research methods, Dr. Lynée Gaillet for her expertise in archival research methods and development, and finally I will need to find another potential participant from those that are actively using the DALN for their own research. From this list, I am still choosing from Deborah Kuzawa (Ohio State University), Moira Connelly (Pellissippi State Community College), Kara Poe Alexander (Baylor University), Alison Turner (University of Denver), and Jessica Pauszek (Boston College). I’ve included the institutional affiliations because that’s primarily where my struggles in choosing an individual have come from. Kuzawa being at Ohio State may make it easier to leverage existing relationships to get into contact with her, Moira offers the unique perspective of someone from a community college, Alexander directs Baylor university’s writing center adding to her unique perspective, then both Turner and Pauszek have no affiliation with me or those I’m affiliated with and can still give the perspective of a researcher private universities. All in all, since this project has limited time to be completed, I think I will be choosing to reach out to Kuzawa (who also has overlapping research interests in queer composition as well), but wanted to get some feedback and perspective before going through with it.
Professionals
Professionals have been the hardest to figure out how to recruit for this project. Because I’ve gone straight through my education, I have limited access to the formal roles in which literacy narratives might be valuable to others, but I have some relationships that might be beneficial for this work. In the end, I’ve identified two key individuals who I will be contacting: John Medlock, the current assistant dean for enrollment services at GSU whom I worked with last summer in GSU’s accelerator academy; and second, Leslie Quigless, the director of a private tutoring service that I work for. For the third, I have been wagering the inclusion of my aunt, Jill Zimbler, who could offer a public school teacher’s perspective, but I’m not sure if this would be the best inclusion for this project either.
Nonetheless, this planning week has been fruitful and given me a solid trajectory to start implementing the project in a more effective capacity!