Alternate Report 1 for G23
Transcript Analysis of an Information Literacy Dialogue
by Jarrett Razon
My Transcript is at: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/409bf2005/razon/jarrettrazon-transcript.htm
Instructions for this
report are at:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy23/g23-alternate-report1.htm
Introduction
The Generational
Curriculum is a great tool and reference for scholars and students to use to
publish their work on the web for other educationalists to look at and
use. The generational curriculum that
our class is involved in is an on-line reference. It is a library to the past
Here is the link to our Generational
Curriculum
This report is an alternate to what the rest
of the class is doing because we already did what the rest of the class did in
another class we took from Dr. James.
The task for the report one that the class is doing is to monitor their
own individual information performance and behavior. I have learned a great deal from completing
the report one in the Driving Psychology course that I took. It forced me to keep up on deadlines for
assignments; it also allowed me to become part of this generational
curriculum. However, I was excited to
finish report one because of its requirement to pay attention to the details
that was required to present a quality report in the end. The report let me publish my work on-line
which was something that I never knew how to do and for the most part even want
to. I have gained a lot of technological
knowledge on how to prepare my work in a manner that is suitable to be viewed
online by millions of people, and can do it with confidence from completing
report one.
Here is the link to my Report
1
My contribution to the generational curriculum
is my observation of another person on the quickly growing information literacy
highway. In this report, I will be
performing a transcript analysis of two children and their performance on the
computer. The participants will perform
a simple task that will be in the duration of 10-12 minutes, 5-8 of those
minutes will be analyzed. The
participants will be observed on what they know how to do on the computer from
turning it on, opening up programs, surfing the web for different items, and to
close down the computer when they are complete.
My job is to observe them and to ask them how they gained to knowledge
to perform those tasks along with other questions that I will pose to them,
from what is going on now, or who taught you how to do that? However, the idea that I will be most
interested in during their performance is why they are doing each task during
the procedure. This entire procedure
will be tape-recorded and I will post the transcript along with this
report. When the task is completed, I
will then attempt to analyze the transcript and conjure up my conclusions.
The purpose of this report is for me to
understand a little more on my comprehension of observing and analyzing another
individual’s information literacy capacity.
From completing this report, I hope to be able to better observe and
analyze the behavior of another person’s information literacy ability.
Method
Recruiting participants for this report and
study was a bit difficult in the beginning because of the length needed to
complete the task. When I first
approached various friends of mine to participate in this study, they were
willing to comply, but when they asked how long it would take, they said they
couldn’t do it. When I first read over
the assignment, I too felt that it was a rather long study and task for someone
to sit at the computer and follow directions with someone asking those
questions at the same time. I realized
that I would need to have a good way of luring people in to my study and that I
would need to develop a catchy and attention-keeping activity for them to do to
keep them interested in the tasks. In
order to keep them interested, I designed a simple set of instructions and
tasks for the participants to accomplish.
It just so happens that I play soccer and needed a new pair of soccer
shoes and what a good time for these participants to find me a good deal on a
certain style and type of shoes that I was looking for and wanted.
I instructed the two subjects to search on the
web for a certain brand and style of soccer shoes which was called Adidas
Predator Pulse 2 Black. The conditions
for them were to find me this certain shoe, in seven and a half (&.5) shoe size,
the Firm Ground (FG) style, and had to be the all black color. They were also instructed to find me the
cheapest cost from three different vendors but one of those three vendors had
to be from eBay and the sellers had to be in the
Now it was a challenge to find two of my
friends to help me out. For both of the
participants, I approached them and asked them if they wanted to do a fun and
simple study on the computer for around 25 minutes while being asked questions
to see what and why they are doing specific tasks on the computer. They eventually agreed and performed the
tasks in a similar manner to each other.
The participants were both male and 22 years old.
The first participant acted confident before
the task and continued on to have the same attitude that he started with. He took this study as a game and a challenge
as he does in everything that he does. At first he wasn’t too excited to do the
work on the computer but once he sat down and listened to the instructions that
I gave him, he was right off and going on the computer trying to finish as fast
as he could. He used two search engines
yahoo and Google and of course went onto eBay to search for the shoe. He was surprised to see how much the shoe
cost on eBay in comparison to the other websites that he found. He searched eBay last and found that it was
much cheaper to but the shoes on eBay and not on the other two sites he had
found. I had mentioned before that by
using my friends who play soccer and would eventually need new soccer boots,
they would get the chance now to see the kind of shoes that I wear and was
going to buy. This participant was
excited in the beginning and the end and was happy to have participated and to
have finished the task.
The second participant was not as excited as the first one. He leisurely took his time to find the first
quote on the shoe and then picked up the pace after I told him that our other
friend finished the activity much faster than he did. He took this as a challenge just like the
first participant and went at it searching for the cheapest price in a 7.5
size. The main difference in this
participant than the first one was his use of lycos.com instead of yahoo as did
the first participant. I found it
interesting that he preferred that search engine because it wasn’t too familiar
to me. I have heard of it but I have not
personally used it a lot because I mainly used Google and msn. Although the two participants used one
different search engine, they both got the job done and both agreed and found
that the cheapest shoe was being sold on eBay.
After I completed the two interviews, I realized that this method of
observing information literacy in another person, and I mean tape recording
them and then analyzing the transcript method, would not be as reliable or
valid as another method would be. I
believe that in order for this method to become a reliable and valid method of
gathering information for information literacy, would be to standardize the
questions that are being asked and to have a set time and certain question to
ask. I also learned that the
participants that are participating should also be randomly selected. Using two of my friends who played soccer
with me to do the study, was in a way bias because they knew where to look
right away and did it with no problem.
Had the participants not be so familiar with soccer, it may have taken
them a bit longer or gave them a bit more trouble in finding the certain style
of shoe.
Other ideas that came to mind when I was observing them on the computer
was that of the tape recorder. Having
the tape recorder on during the interview allowed me to focus more on to what
kinds of physical reactions the interviewees were making. I didn’t have to worry too much about
remembering what they said or when they said it because all I needed to do was
to replay the tape recording. I believe
the tape recording method is a good idea and method to use simply because; you
can pay more attention and focus on the body and facial expressions and
reaction of the participant. On the
other hand I think that the area and ideas of the transcript analysis is where
reliability and validity will come into play.
Everyone will have a different view and opinion on the same transcript. Possibly in some cases, individuals may
interpret some data as argumentative but it may actually be a statement by the
other. I believe that there could be a
great deal of misunderstanding and miscommunication on some ideas and passages.
As I mentioned before, for this method to yield high validity and
reliability, the study has to be developed in more of a standardized way to
limit the variables that may arise. Some
examples of ways to standardize the method a little more would be to have a
designated time in each interview to when to ask a certain question such
as , “What are you doing now,” and “Why
did you decide to do that?” Of course
different interpretations and comprehension will cause results to the same
analysis will occur but will be in the general context of the other results due
to the standardized asking of questions.
After I completed analyzing the transcripts, I learned that this method
is labor intensive and tedious. From
interviewing two participants and asking a prompt question every time there was
a silence for more than 10 seconds, then having to type out the interview onto
the computer, then analyzing what was said and done took a lot of time and a
lot of thinking. Although I am not too
enthusiastic to use this method of transcript analysis again, I am positive
that the generational curriculum is a great idea and tool to have. It allowed me to sift through some of the
material that previous students have published and to see what kind of things
they did that would help me out with my study.
I learned that the participants in my study were knowledgeable and
capable of performing a task of instructions while being interviewed and
tape-recorded, and on top of that, on the computer. They produced quality results and I was
impressed in what they had accomplished.
Analysis
I selected the samples by asking my friends
who played soccer with me because they were the ones who were available to me
and they didn’t mind participating in a task that would take 20-25 minutes to
complete. At first I asked some of my
friends who didn’t play soccer and told them the study would be about finding a
certain type of item on line. They
agreed to participate until they asked what they would be searching for
online. Once I told them it was a
certain soccer shoe, they said they didn’t know that much about soccer and
decided not to do the study. My friends
who played soccer said that it would be easy and decided to help me out after I
told them what they had to do. During
both of the interviews, the recording went fine in terms of being able to tape
record them from a good distance away to hear the playback. Everything went well with the recording
during the interview and there wasn’t too much problem.
The interaction during the interview was the thing that interested me
the most because during the first interview, the participant wanted to find the
three shoes as fast as he could. He was
trying very hard to find the cheapest shoe available and concentrated on that
task. His high amount of concentration
left me to only receive one or two word answers from him such as, “Did you find
the shoe in a 7.5?” He would only reply with, “Yes.” “Could you tell me where you are looking at
now?” “His reply, “Wait.” Once everything was all over and towards the
end he calmed down and I was able to speak to him and get back more than one
word answers. He finished the task
rather quickly and was proud of it. So
from this experience with this participant, going into the second one I
expected the same thing because we are all friends and play soccer
together. Wrong!
When we began the second interview, the participant started off slow and
took his time treating the situation not as a competition as in the first
interview. The thing that changed his
attitude was when I mentioned to him that in the first study it only took him 5
minutes to find what he was looking for and that the both of them are looking
for the same thing. This caused him to
show signs of competitiveness against the first interviewee. He started to pick up his pace opening
multiple windows to faster search for the shoes on different websites. Now in my mind in did not intend for this
study to become a race of who could find a pair of shoes the fastest nor did I
expect it to turn out the way it did because I said that the first person did
it in this amount of time. I believe
that it is the aggressive nature of the two of them that caused them to perform
in these ways. Although the competitive
nature was exhibited in both of the participants, I do not believe that it had
a huge impact on what I was looking for in this study. In this study I was simply observing the
information literacy behavior of another person.
When we were through with the interviews, it was time for me to listen
to and analyze the tape recording. When
I first listened to it, I made a reference to myself on the way I sounded on
tape. I didn’t know that I sounded the
way I did when I was being recorded.
After hearing myself give the instructions to the participants, I
noticed that there was less dialogue during the actual task or in the middle
period rather than the beginning and the end by either myself or the
participant. I think this is because
they were concentrating on the instructions.
The quality of the sound from the recorder was good enough to hear what
was being asked and what was being said.
For future students who are required to do this type of research, my
advice to them is to make sure that they set up the tape recorder in a place
that will get them the best quality of sound which will give them the best
opportunity to analyze the transcript.
The transcript analysis part of this study is what we want to look
at. I wanted to observe them and then
see what kind of information literacy behavior they are capable of and report
on it. In order to this, I marked off
all the times that I asked them a question and their answer was either I
learned it from someone else or I learned it from using the computer and going
on the internet a lot. I was interested
in how much of the knowledge was acquired through being taught something by
watching another person, or if it was self-learned through extensive use of the
computer on their own. However I did run
into some difficulty analyzing the part of the transcripts that were
self-explanatory in the replies from the participants. For example when they replied with one word
answers and didn’t really elaborate on how they gained that knowledge or why
they did what they did at the time, it was difficult to analyze it because not
enough detail was given.
In addition to marking off what was learned and what was taught to the
participants I also looked at how many times they paused or stopped because
they didn’t know what to do. When they
would stop I would ask them why they are stopping. I thought to myself may be they are stopping
because they don’t know what to do or they forgot about one of the condition
the shoes had to be in. I chose a
specific shoe for them to search for because one I use those types of shoes,
and I know that there are a number of combinations within that style of
shoes. It comes with white stripes, and
red designs, and in either Firm Ground, which was the intended choice, or Hard
Ground (HG), and in Soft Ground (SG).
The company that makes the shoe also makes them in a flat or turf style
with the different combinations. They
have a developed clothing line naming it after the shoe so there are many
variables in the search that they had to be aware of and could have slowed them
down or even hinder their task completion.
Fortunately although I was thinking about these ideas in my head while
interviewing them, when I typed it out and looked at it, there wasn’t but one
time that there was a significant enough pause.
Many other scholars have used this type of research to help them in
different applications of academia such as Dr. James and his use of transcript
analysis in the areas of speech, dialogue, and psychotherapy. I read over what Dr. James had analyzed in
his work of Social Psychological Propositions Needed to Justify Transcript and
Discourse Analysis to analyze my own transcripts. It was interesting to read in his work that
in speech and dialogue, there is negotiation between the two and good and bad
negotiating strategies. In good
negotiating strategies, each move has as its intention the building up of the
other and in bad negotiating each move's intention is to gain an advantage for
the self. A link to this study Social
Psychological Propositions Needed to Justify Transcript and Discourse Analysis Dr. James also proposes this method as a
potential tool in psychotherapy. In this
paper he claims that this method shows how talk is analyzable into speech acts
which have clearly discernable psychodynamic information about the clients’ level
of functioning interpersonally and interpersonally. The link to this paper Transcript
Analysis as a Potential Tool for Psychotherapy
Discussion
This method of research was new to me and I
did not know what to expect going into this study. I expected it to be a lot of work at the
computer writing up the work and had expected setbacks in recruiting the
participants. As I mentioned before, I
believe that this would be a great tool and method to use if it was set up in a
more standardized way to limit the variables.
When I finished the report one for my traffic psychology class, where I
had to monitor my own information literacy behavior, I could see that I was
competent enough to build my own home page, upload my work using another
unfamiliar online tool, and to fully follow the instructions that were
given. In a similar fashion I have
learned that my friends or the participants are also information literate on
the computer. They were both able to
follow the instructions and took it to another level of competition while they
were doing the task. I learned that the
technological advances that are being made will continue to produce new ideas
and fancy gadgets that we all will have to learn to adapt to.
Learning how to use the computer and
get familiar with the basic tools and shorthands of the computer is taught at
an early age at around the elementary level.
I believe that you are only exposed to the tools on the computer that
are relevant to school and what they want or need you to do. As you age, you develop your own way of using
the computer and have your own tasks and ways of finding what you need. I have noticed that with my participants,
they remembered what they wanted to remember and picked up the things that they
needed along the way and through using the computer for their own needs.
Technology will develop new ways to gather and find information in an
even faster way than the internet and libraries. Everyone will again need to learn these new
ways or get caught up in doing things that aren’t necessary and could have been
avoided by using these new advancements of information literacy. The National Forum of Information defines
information literacy as the
ability to know when there is a need for information, to be able to identify,
locate, evaluate, and effectively use that information for the issue or problem
at hand. The
participants have clearly shown that they are information literate according to
this definition.
Advice to Future Generations
In my study I think that there can be
improvement on selecting the participants and developing a neutral set of
instructions instead of just finding soccer shoes. Some examples of neutral set of instructions
can be finding a house with a certain number of bedrooms and bathrooms, or
searching out different genres of DVD’s.
Any general topic will allow your participants to go to a wider range of
websites to find the information from. I
also believe that if you are information literate, when its time to do your
transcript analysis, you will be able to add more insights into what was going
on or what you thought they should have done or what you would have done in
their situation. Another area of
improvement would be in the discussion section.
Try to find other studies that used this type of method to conduct their
research. It will help you to analyze
your transcripts in a more professional manner.
As I said in my report one, the earlier you start with this report because
there is a lot of work to get done and a lot of information to sort out when
you get your interviews done. This study
had a lot of ups and downs in terms of completing one area of the study. Once you finish the interviews you are
excited that those are out of the way but then you realize that you still have
to analyze them which take a long time and then you must type them out. In the discussion section I used the
Reference:
Appendix