Summary:
Thacker and Dayton presented their ideas about how to use Web 2.0 tools to gather data, conduct research, and further technical communication studies. They discuss a recommended design for a Firsthand Report website (FHR). Their article contains an effective table (not available below) worth reading that explores the differences between interview-based qualitative research and a firsthand report website.
Citation-worthy:
"To improve qualitative data gathering using Internet-mediated communication, researchers would benefit greatly if they had a Web site that enabled them to: [1] Impose some unifornity of structure on and embed metadata in the textual information as it is collected; [2] Facilitate timely interaction to clarify and elaborate the texts first presented by informants; [3] Provde data exploration tools built into the primary data collection platform; [4] Enable teams of researchers to work closely together to collect and analyze information presented over time by many informants. The technology to build such Web sites already exists, and it is being implemented widely" (Thacker & Dayton, 2008, p. 384).
"The FHR Web site has three primary functions: (1) to collect information from numerous people on a relatively narrow topic; (2) to enable easy search and retrieval of the knowledgebase thus created; and (3) to build the social cohesion and communication that characterize healthy virtual communities" (Thacker & Dayton, 2008, p. 386).
"Users of the FHR Web site will interact with fellow community members and the information on the sit through a relatively small set of key functions.
- Profile: A personal profile space that features all of the user’s relevant demographic and psychographic information. The profile is also the main gateway for users to interface with an informant’s first-hand reports, blogs, and discussion. Firsthand Report: Structured narrative accounts generated from a uniform sequence of prompts created by the research team.
- Search: A search engine that queries the site’s database to find relevant information from the inputsand preferences of the user.
- Forum: The site’s threaded message board that is accessible to the public. The message board is designed for members of the community to discuss topics in an open forum, interacting with guests—visitors to the site who have not joined the site or have not been approved for membership in the site by the principal investigator (PI) and/or the research team.
- Help: A wiki that addresses common issues pertaining to the site. The wiki will be initiated and maintained by the research team, but any member will have the ability to comment on any page, and some members who volunteer for the role will be able to edit pages" (Thacker & Dayton, 2008, p. 386).
literature of technical communication in arguing for a similarly participative ideal in evaluating the validity of qualitative research. Contrasting their stance to the views of several other scholars in technical communication and in composition studies, they state '[W]e need to view validity as being more than a matter of determining whether, in fact, we are measuring what we think or say we are measuring, which is how many
scholars continue to define validity' (128). Paraphrasing the views of Kirsch (1992, 257), Blakeslee and colleagues (1999) agreed that researchers doing qualitative studies in technical communication 'should open up our research agendas to our participants, listen to their stories, and allow them to actively participate, as much as possible, in the design, development, and reporting of our research' (132). They acknowledge the difficulties of implementing that vision of participatory research (Thacker & Dayton, 2008, pp. 387-388).
