In my method's practice 2 I wrote about our experience that we had visiting the Tongan Ward. I really loved going there and getting to spend time with the people. It made me even more excited to go to Tonga. It's been really stressful trying to figure out everything as far as money goes and classes, but visiting the ward reminded me why I am really going to Tonga. It's about the people. The other stuff is just logistics and details, but the point is the cultural experience that I'll have with the Tongan people. I know that the research and educational aspects are very important to the Field Study experience, but I think the most important thing to me is the culture immersion. Spending time with the Tongan people and eating their food and hearing about their lives, made me excited to gain a real experience in the actual culture.
As I continue to research about Tonga and the family, I have been thinking very hard about how I want to go about asking the questions I want to ask. As I have read about research methods and after the methods workshop today, I am pretty sure I want to ask questions in a semi-structured interviewed setting. I am going to ask a series of very basic questions about family relationships. I have a couple of books that are giving me some good guidelines for the types of subjects that I want to look in to and the types of questions I'd like to ask. I think the most important thing I am trying to keep in mind right now is to make my questions narrow enough to get good, specific answers, but broad enough to gain a good assessment of the general Tongan family. It's a hard balance, but I think it's very doable, so that gives me a lot of hope!
Showing posts with label interviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label interviews. Show all posts
Friday, February 11, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Learning Journal 11
This past week has brought on several new discoveries for me! First, I decided on a book that I want to read for my Book Review, called "Becoming Tongan." It's all about the Tongan family and I feel like it will be very beneficial in my research on the family. I think this is a great opportunity to help me gain a little bit of insight, and if nothing else, have some conversation starters for my encounters/interviews with the Tongan people.
Another thing that I learned this week was the importance of preparing good questions before going into an interview and learning how to be a good interviewer. Obviously, I haven't mastered the skill by reading a couple of articles and practicing a couple of interviews, but I think it's very beneficial to gain an idea of what you can do to make your experience better. I'm very excited for the opportunity I will have to sit down with the Tongan people and ask them questions about their families and their views on things. I think one of the most important things I learned about that though, is the importance of guiding the interview and keeping it some what structured while still tailoring it for the situation at hand. I think I learned that it's actually ok to change your questions around a little based on the answers that the interviewee gives and that you don't have to stick to strict number or order of questions, etc. I think that keeping this in mind can really help you to have more successful interviews and help the person you are talking to want to open up more.
Lastly, I changed the topic that I will be studying around and am taking a different angle on studying the family. Instead of studying aggression, I am going to ask the Tongan people multiple different questions about family life in Tonga and get a general consensus of what the family norms are like. I am hoping to gain insights into the norms of Tongan courtship,marriage, pregnancy, child discipline, gender roles, along with a few other things. I think that this project will allow me much more flexibility and will help me to gain a broader understanding of several aspects of the family rather than one specific thing. I'm really excited about this topic and think it will make a successful project in Tonga!
Another thing that I learned this week was the importance of preparing good questions before going into an interview and learning how to be a good interviewer. Obviously, I haven't mastered the skill by reading a couple of articles and practicing a couple of interviews, but I think it's very beneficial to gain an idea of what you can do to make your experience better. I'm very excited for the opportunity I will have to sit down with the Tongan people and ask them questions about their families and their views on things. I think one of the most important things I learned about that though, is the importance of guiding the interview and keeping it some what structured while still tailoring it for the situation at hand. I think I learned that it's actually ok to change your questions around a little based on the answers that the interviewee gives and that you don't have to stick to strict number or order of questions, etc. I think that keeping this in mind can really help you to have more successful interviews and help the person you are talking to want to open up more.
Lastly, I changed the topic that I will be studying around and am taking a different angle on studying the family. Instead of studying aggression, I am going to ask the Tongan people multiple different questions about family life in Tonga and get a general consensus of what the family norms are like. I am hoping to gain insights into the norms of Tongan courtship,marriage, pregnancy, child discipline, gender roles, along with a few other things. I think that this project will allow me much more flexibility and will help me to gain a broader understanding of several aspects of the family rather than one specific thing. I'm really excited about this topic and think it will make a successful project in Tonga!
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