first quarter 2015 update

Already I feel like i have gotten off to a better start to the year than last.
I had tried to run a focus group to get feedback on the development of the framework before moving on to constructing some kind of interactive one that I could trial. However it proved impossible to get anyone along to it at MQ.

Checked in with ethics at UTS and providing i did an amendment at MQ to include a UTS staff cohort, they were happy for me to go ahead and run the focus group at UTS (new employer).

Approval was also required by the DVC (Shirley). Once done, the invite went out and now the focus group/ workshop is scheduled for wednesday 22nd April. There are 10 participants rsvp'd. Each has a current L&T grant. MOre on that later.

Also, just in is feedback from IJEM that paper 3 (details of phase 1) has been accepted with minor revisions. So I am now looking back at data and analysis notes from 2012(!) It's dusty up there.... in here.... so am scouring this blog in the hope to find something useful since the reviewers want to see some more detail of analysis in the results and appendices.

Update Aug 2014

Where did the year go?? I was on a roll back in April, investigating types of coding and starting work thorugh the transcripts. Then suddently its the middle of August and I've completely forgotten where I am at!
I'll start by going back to the coding bible (Saldana) re reading my scribbles and trying to pick up where I left off.

I haven't been completely redundant. I've been scratching my head for a long time considering what to do about my rejection of paper 3 from the Journal of Further and Higher Education. This was the paper that reported outcomes from phase one of the project. I attempted to ask for a fourth reviewer because I felt that one of the reviewers had not read the paper or rather had jumped to inaccurate conclusions about what I was trying to do. Anyway that led nowhere so have now resubmitted to the International Journal of Educational Management. That was about a month ago so will sit tight and wait to hear.

In the meantime I have been trialling the modified Chesterton & Cummings Evaluation Framework with my OLT project for which I am an external evaluator. There has been good feedback from the team about how this has really helped them keep their focus and keep the project on track. We are also in discussion on writing a paper together to describe how the evaluation has worked for them.

I had a workshop abstract accepted at the Australasian Evaluation Society's annual conference in Darwin. However they were unable to attract enough participants so I am now reconsidering my attendance. It would have been a great opportunity to trial the framework and application with a wider audience.

And finally I have submitted an abstract to the AAIR (Australasian Association for Institutional Research) Forum 2014. This year they have partnered up with the Australasian Higher Education Evaluation Forum(AHEEF). I was particularly interested in two of the Themes: 

• Closing the Loop – Putting Evidence into Practice
• Influencing Change through Information and Evaluation

So am just waiting to hear back to see whether I have been successful.

Update Jan 2014

Agenda for this month is to update the gantt chart - where are we what are we adjusting/modifying: Acting as a project evaluator I am able to test out my framework - it may be useful to include this as a paper in my study as findings will certainly impact on stage 3. Actually if i think about it, that was what my original prposal suggested - that i use the framework to evaluate 3 local projects. I didn't end up doing that as it wasn't my role. Phase 2 has turned into a triangulation/measure of the findings from phase 1 and the lit review.
Thoughts on triangulation: use of three case studies offering an in depth look at the findings from phase one and the literature review - contextualising what's happening. Deeper richer insights to the findings.

There is a need to engage people and bring them into the process of evaluation - what needs to change? what comes next - this is the contribution to the knowledge.

Also need to think about publications and budget spending for this year: aiming for one new publication ie not including the article that went to JFHE. Need to target a journal for the case study manuscript.

progress check

Well its half way through my 2nd full year of PhD and still finding my way. This year feels like it has mostly been writing and rewriting. Phase 1 findings have been 90% written up into a conference paper that was originally intended for the Australasian Evaluation Society Conference in Brisbane. It was accepted but then funding from the department was not forthcoming. So a last minute change of plans required a rewrite of the abstract and have recently received acceptance to The 5th Asian Conference on Education. It's in Osaka but I will hopefully present virtually (funding pending). My dilemma now is how to reduce what is about an 8 and a half thousand word paper into just 5000 for the conference. Also how do I ensure the paper is selected for the journal as a publication is really my intended outcome for participating in this conference.

My literature review has also been submitted to the Journal Studies in Educational Evaluation. This was peer reviewed and received considerable constructive feedback. However the editor did invite resubmission so that has been done and I'm now awaiting the second round of feedback (or rejection).

So it is time to return to data collection for phase 2. I'm transcribing interviews from phase 2 and need to soon turn to analysis and writing. But first need to do wrap up interviews for phase 2 case studies.

What have I learned from all this writing? That improvements can always be made; that people see and read different meanings than you sometimes intend; that writing short (5000 word) articles is difficult; that I am able to write.

Also, I need to do some more work on theory. I have briefly touched on the use of pragmatism or realism but it might be interesting to try and write either a short paper or definitely more for the chapter in the thesis.

And finally whilst considering how to cut down paper on phase 1, we have discussed the possibility of removing the Leximancer information and either trying to publish something on the methodology, using the results tables as examples or  putting that information into the thesis.