Research project progress

Last week was a busy week. My three research days are full of 'things to do'. Last week I was in Auckland for two days, doing focus group meetings with groups of Boating apprentices. A fine collection of energetic and enthusiastic young men, all bar one out of 23 made a concerted decision to enter the trade of boat building. It will be interesting to find out perspectives of apprentices from other trades as boat building seems to be one of the ‘trendy’ trades with prospects for good wages at the end of apprenticeship plus opportunities to travel, participate in international sailing races and opportunities to learn and practice a diverse range of skills.


On the third research day, Flip & I did our first ‘data collection’ session with a group of welding students. We accomplished a good morning of work to familiarise ourselves with the hardware and for the students to become acquainted with us observing / filming them. Six students were also issued with voice recorders which they put into their overalls chest pockets. Quality of sound from the recorders was good. Synchronising them to videos will be a challenge but we will work on time codes.

In the afternoon, we had a convivial and informative meeting with Jae Major at the College of Education, University of Canterbury. Jae provided useful tips about focusing on the research question and most importantly, how to organise video data using time codes, synchronising voice recorders to video and archival of the data. Also some good tips on how to go about doing preliminary and then more in-depth data analysis. Her instructions mirror some of the recommendations provided by Frederick Erickson in a chapter on research procedures and their rationales for dealing with the analysis of videotape evidence, in the Handbook of Complementary Methods in Educational Research (2006), much of the chapter available on google books.