I handed in my research proposal to Mrs. Haag this morning... which means there are a lot of emotions right now. I'm proud of myself because I think I am getting an even stronger grasp on my research and what I will be doing. And I am really looking forward to starting the data collection. However, I am also nervous about more writing and conveying my methods in a way that is clear but not oversimplified.
My plan moving forward consists of reviewing my proposal, writing the methods, editing, starting validity tests, and then finally watching some movies.
There are still considerations I need to make like the best way to organize my results so that I can actually draw meaning from them. As of right now, I have a code sheet that has a column for the frequency of the behavior or attribute. But, I need to know these traits for each character and each family and each movie and then as a whole. In order to make meaningful results on a character level to a general trend, I imagine writing a qualitative analysis of whether each character fits the capitalist definition of his or her role based on whether their character has a majority of the characteristics of that role. Then, I can make a conclusion on the family as a whole, which can contribute to a discussion on whether the movie contains clearly defined families and gender or not. Once I make a conclusion on each movie, I can have a spreadsheet of these conclusions so that I can look at the sample as a whole.
If I see a trend in the possible contradictions between the characters and the capitalist structure, then I can pull specific traits and their frequencies. For this I imagine using a spreadsheet that would add up the frequencies of specific traits of every character in a certain role (ex: authoritative mother or aggressive mother). I am afraid this may be too subjective or cherry picked if I only took out data from certain characteristics. So, the other option is I could have a spreadsheet that would add the frequency of each trait in a certain role and then could look if there are contradictions. This would also strengthen the qualitative conclusions I make on the movies and sample as a whole. Realistically though, I do not know what this would look like in terms of creating a spreadsheet that can add everything up for me (especially if I have separate spreadsheets for each family or movie).
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Again, I think you consistently fail to take your methods a step further by linking them to Marx and ultimately the significance of your project. You have all of the information there, but you need to make that final connection in order to make it meaningful.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, I think it's important for you to set up clear deadlines and goals for yourself, which means explicit deadlines. As in, have a certain amount of movies you'll complete in a week by calculating how many hours each movie will require in your analysis and then moving forward how long you anticipate the analysis portion to take.
Grace! Sorry for the late comment but here are some pointers following our discussion in class.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to your code sheet, I think that if you create names for each coding sheet it will allow you to reference them in your results and discussion. This means that you will still be able to add up the frequencies to look at all the movie characters and families as a whole while still being able to break down your results and talk about each family individually in order to address possible inconsistencies.
Also, like we talked about in class, I think that you should be able to get done with your data collection perhaps within a month. Thus, two movies a day should be feasible but I would make weekly targets just in case you miss a day.