I am in full throttle data collection mode right now, and this little guy is my frenemy. This is my voice recorder for interviewing and focus groups, and I love, love, love it! It's super simple, stores a ton of data, and it's literally impossible to accidentally erase anything. (Now that I've put that in writing, I'm sure I'll find a way, though.)I had a fabulous focus group on Thursday. I left my site realizing two things: I was on to something big and I have been horribly wrong. I'm still working through the qualitative quandary in my mind, but suffice it to say my hypothesis is shot, I've probably been using the wrong theory, and I'm pretty much thrilled about it.
The only bummer about the focus group is the transcription. I'm a huge believer in the fact that you don't really know your data unless you transcribe it yourself. I hear so many little nuances and pick up new things when I'm forced to listen to it that slowly. I can insert all my little notes and thoughts and questions as a I listen, and it's usually in this process that a lot of my initial analysis happens. The only bad news is that it takes forever...and I mean forever. My one hour focus group took me a little over four hours to transcribe (including noting).
It seems this little recorder and I are going to be spending a lot of quality time together over the next few weeks. Stay tuned to hear what I figure out...I'll let you know as soon as I know!
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