My research has moved far more quickly this semester than in the past. So far, we have conducted nine interviews with college students of various gender identities and upbringings. Our conversations have been very thought-provoking, and our participants have given us lots to work with. We have seen lots of patterns in the answers given, which will be helpful as we analyze our data and get it ready to present at the symposium in December.
Interviews
When we conduct our interviews, we typically do them somewhere comfortable and private. I have had several participants come to my house and sit in my living room for casual conversation, and we have also gone to my research partner's house. Since the subject of our research is so personal, we want to make sure our participants are comfortable so that we can get the depth we are looking for. Our questions ask them to recount stories from their childhoods that shaped the way they think about their gender identity. Many participants admitted at the beginning of our interviews that they do not think about their gender identity often, but as we progressed through the questions, the responses became more and more in-depth the more they reflected on their past experiences.
Transcripts
To save precious time, we decided to set up a Zoom meeting to record our interviews, as Zoom has the ability to produce transcripts of recorded meetings. These transcripts are not always accurate, so the first step in analyzing our data is to comb through the transcript along with the recording to fix any errors. During this process, we take out any names that are mentioned, as pseudonyms will be employed to preserve the anonymity of our participants. Once the transcripts are accurate, we will go through and note any details that stand out to us in an attempt to find common themes. These themes will become the codes through which we will evaluate our data and draw our conclusions. We will comb through each transcript multiple times as new codes are discovered, as it's important that we make note of each time the code comes up in our conversations.
Presentation Development
The final step for this project this semester will be presenting my research at the McNair Research Symposium at the beginning of December. The challenge with this presentation will be fitting everything I want to share with my audience into 7-10 minutes. There are so many details of this project that I find interesting and important, so choosing places to cut out information while emphasizing others will be difficult. One piece of my presentation that I'm particularly excited to explain is my methodology. Since the beginning of this project, my method has been unique. Because of the lack of "hard" data, autoethnography and ethnography are not always respected as "real" research. However, I believe interpreting the experiences of others can be incredibly beneficial in gaining a deep understanding of how communication works in practice. Hearing stories from individuals can help paint a clear picture of what they experienced and expose the complex relationships between communication, emotions, societal structures, identity, and more.
As much as finishing all the interviews, transcripts, and analysis of our data will be hard work, I'm excited to see this project finished. I can't wait to present, and I plan on turning it into a paper for publication next semester. I'm very proud of how far this project has come since phase one, and I hope to continue similar projects in my future education and career.