Reflective Essay: Reflexivity and Bias in Research

Reflective Essay: Reflexivity and Bias in Research Entry No. 1: January 26, 2015, 8:15 pm My Role as a Researcher I approach the challenge of research in the doctoral level with some degree of apprehension as well as excitement. I have been in the field of business for more or less than a decade now, working in customer service management, so I can appreciate the importance of doing research especially in gauging customer satisfaction and determining how to leverage this to improve the companys competitive advantage. Ensuring customer satisfaction entails several factors. Nowadays, much of the world is hinged on the maximizing technology in order to provide information and choices for customers. Due to the saturation of the Internet nowadays, users are shifting in millions from their laptops to their smartphones. The smartphone is now the site of communication, decision-making, research, shopping, and purchasing. This has altered the way businesses do things. In a very urgent way, it pressures companies to be responsive to customers needs in a real-time manner. Mobile CRM is a novel way of handling customer relations. Using only their mobile devices like smartphones or tables, employees can now retrieve customer information and customer accounts remotely. Where previously, they relied on a laptop to do their work, mobile CRM achieves the same results in an efficient and convenient manner. The question now is how I consider myself or my role as a researcher in the doctorate research I plan to pursue. First, the novelty of mobile CRM and the lack of research in this area is what motivated me to choose this as the research topic. My research is about mobile customer relationship management (CRM) and how it influences customer satisfaction and competitive advantage in the context of Samsung in United Arab of Emirates. Second, I have a wealth of experience in customer relations and have been with Samsung for many years. Hughest and Tight (2013) suggest that a researchers role in the study requires identifying personal values, biases, and assumptions at the very beginning. In this manner, transparency, which is a crucial element in objectivity, is promoted. Ortlipp (2008) states that keeping a research diary is an excellent method of upholding transparency in research since it details the research process in a way that allows the researcher to reveal the nuances attached to his or her participation. As a researcher, I have been in customer relations for nearly a decade and I believe that my professional and personal experiences with Samsung will increase my awareness, knowledge and sensitivity to the key issues that my research will attend to. I have experience in implementing mobile CRM and I am fairly knowledgeable with the technology associated with it. This will aid me in recognizes the thoughts, views and experiences of the participants when I interview them. My experiences and worldview will also influence how I interpret and understand the data I collect. Entry No. 2: April 3, 2015 Bias what are mine? One of the biggest problems with qualitative research is bias. Much has been said and explained about the extent to which a researcher can influence the outcomes of the study and whether or not some form of control is needed over the qualitative research process, in what is referred to as the interpretive crisis (Denzin Lincoln, 1994). Interpretive research proceeds differently from positivist research because data is analyzed in an inductive manner. In this manner, the researcher proceeds from a set of facts and interprets them to develop a general theory about a particular phenomenon. This opens the researcher to various possibilities of bias. Unlike the quantitative survey which I am most familiar with, qualitative data collection methods feature the researcher as facilitator. My presence occupies a prominent feature in the conduct of the data collection itself because I am the instrument. Therefore, how I collect the data will impact its quality significantly. For this research, I am considering doing focus group discussions in order to gather the views of users and employees on the impact of mobile CRM. I will be using a semi-structured discussion guide. The focus group is a familiar method used in business research and I am more or less knowledgeable with its general concept. However, I learned to be more conscious of some of the disadvantages of the focus groups. Focus group involves a group of people who are gathered and asked what their attitudes are towards a product or service.   It is not merely a simple gathering where answers are drawn from a set of people; in focus groups, discussion is facilitated. The facilitator can steer the group participants and influence them based on what questions he/she poses. There is also interaction, so participants are free to influence others with their opinion.   A crucial limitation of focus group is the quality of the facilitation (Krueger, 1994). Therefore, should I decide to proceed with the focus group as my primary data collection methods, reducing bias should be a priority. Moderator or facilitator bias will be expected if the facilitator is not skilled enough. He or she should be skilled and competent enough to handle participants who tend to hijack the discussion. I am considering whether I should moderate the focus group or have someone else do it. I have to ensure that my facial expressions, tone, deportment, language style, and gestures do not introduce or facilitate bias. Yet, as Le Gallais (2008) asserts, bias will be present in every researcher since we are influenced by our race, gender, age, and social status. My race for instance, would be a factor in a multi-ethnic focus group. There would be likelihood that I would identify more with Emirati participants than non-Emirati participants and vice versa. Being male, there is also the possibility that in mixed-gender focus groups, my presence would not encourage female participants to share their views. These are things that I need to be specific about when designing the focus group. In order to get quality data, maybe it would be desirable to have all-female, all-male and mixed-group discussions. Another thing I should be careful about is the content of the discussion guide. A biased or leading question influences the participants views and does not reflect good research practice. The manner of asking the question can also be biased. Therefore, the instrument must be checked and validated by an expert to ensure that there are no biased questions. Entry No. 4: December 7, 2016 Reflexivity As I read on theories and worldviews, I realize the importance of the practice of reflexivity. Reflexivity is concerned with a researchers self-awareness and consciousness and being able to own a certain perspective. This requires one to undergo questioning ones self about theoretical positions and how one looks at reality. Being reflexive is an examination of what I know and how I acquired this knowledge I have now. As a qualitative researcher, I need to pay attention to the various socio-political, cultural, and ideological issues surrounding the issue of mobile CRM. For instance, mobile CRM operates under the presumption that the digital world is flat and that users can access technology equally. However, this is not the case. People utilize and appreciate technology based on their social status, age, gender and race. For instance, older customers who are not tech-savvy may not appreciate the delivery of information through mobile phones. Women and men use technology differently and are more likely to have different perceptions about how technology should be used. I recognize how reflexivity is important to me as a doctoral researcher. Being the instrument, I have the power and accountability to interpret the data and to present it to the whole world. I need to ask myself constantly what kind of baggage I carry which will interfere with my interpretation and conduct in the research process. Pe rsonal concerns, ideological conflicts, and health issues are some of the factors I can think of right now which might affect my role as researcher. References       Denzin, N.K. Lincoln, Y.S. (1994). Introduction: Entering the field of qualitative research. In NK Denzin and YS Lincoln (Eds.) Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. .Hughes, C. Tight, M. (2013). The metaphors we study by: the doctorate as a journey and/or as work. Higher Education Research Development 32 (5), 765-775. Krueger, R.A. (1994). Focus groups. A practical guide for applied research. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Le Gallais, T. (2008). Wherever I go there I am: reflections on reflexivity and the research stance. Reflective Practice 9 (2)145-155. Ortlipp, M. (2008). Keeping and Using Reflective Journals in the Qualitative Research Process. The Qualitative Report 13(4), 695-705.

Interpersonal Relationships Essay

Interpersonal relationships can either be defensive or supportive. I find myself being both very many times because I can see things in all different aspects. I try to put myself in the persons shoes in order to determine what would be best in my eyes, A supportive relationship is one where you back up the persons ideas and actions. I believe a manager must always have a supportive relationship with their boss in order to enforce rules in the workplace. If the manager does not enforce their supervisor’s rules then things would go very wrong. A defensive relationship is something we see very often because we all have different opinions. In the workplace especially when working in the healthcare field being defensive can be mistaken for aggression. Having a defensive relationship means that although you work together you have different views and they are expressed. I had a meeting last week where I actually had to speak defensively towards the CEO of the company. Our quota was being held against us in a manner that I did not agree with and I advised the manager. Since she did not acknowledge my suggestion I brought it up in our meeting and not only was I acknowledged our quotas are being reviewed. Part of being a successful communicator whether it is defensive or supportive is being assertive. Being assertive is essential in our daily lives especially in the workplace. There are plenty of times when we are trying to submit claims to the insurance company but they require more information. Many times we try to request more information such as letter of medical necessities from the doctors and they refuse because they feel they documented enough. Because we work for them we are not allowed to tell them what to do but this is when being assertive comes in. You advise the doctor that the insurance company is requesting more information than what is in the medical records and that if the letter is not done by a certain time the insurance company will not pay for the services that were rendered. Being assertive means being straight forward and strong with your style of communication without being aggressive or demeaning. Being assertive is like demanding something without the umpgh. I believe I effectively communicate within my interpersonal relationships. I always am assertive when speaking. I stand my ground and make my point clear and aggression is rarely ever used. I do defend my ideas and my points fully with everyone I speak to. Even at home I do not yell at my son unless he has done something truly incorrect. I always talk to him and show him right from wrong and explain why things should be done a certain way. Interpersonal relationships are essential in life. We all need to work together in our everyday lives in order to accommodate one another and not to offend anyone. In the healthcare field we all have the same goals and that is to make sure that the patient gets the care they need while the insurance companies pay the claims for our doctors. The healthcare field is filled with interpersonal relationships. We all depend on one another in order to do our job correctly. The doctor needs the nurse the nurse needs the front desk and everyone needs the billers. In the healthcare field we must use our confidence in order to be assertive. Being confident means knowing and standing for what you believe is right and expressing that. Being assertive means standing your ground without proof and without being aggressive. Although I believe being assertive works much better when there is proof because it shows that you researched what you are discussing. Assertiveness is a need in any field because you must speak your mind in order to communicate effectively and if you work in the healthcare field than being assertive will make you a very successful healthcare professional.

Mary Whiton Calkins Essay

In the early days of psychology there were few female psychologists who had any type of impact on the field of psychology. There was sex discrimination and it was a common belief that women were inferior to men. Mary Whiton Calkins was able to beat the odds and have a long lasting legacy in psychology. She is considered one of the pioneers in psychology and is credited with a major theoretical contribution of self-psychology, which was centered on the idea that all consciousness is personal. Calkins overcame discrimination from both students and scholars and succeeded in inventing a procedure that was historic; paired associate learning, which has become the standard method in cognitive research (Goodwin, 2008). Mary Whiton Calkins was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1863. She was the oldest of five children; their parents encouraged their education, especially the study of languages and cultures (Furumoto, 1980). Calkins did graduate from high school in Newton Massachusetts and began Smith College in 1882 as a sophomore. Unfortunately, in 1883, her sister’s illness and subsequent death caused her to decide to study Greek at home the following year. However Calkins returned to Smith College in 1884 as a senior, and graduated with a concentration in classics and philosophy in 1885. In 1887, after graduating from Smith College, she was hired to teach Greek at Wellesley College. She had been teaching for three years when she was offered she was offered a position teaching in the new area of psychology (Goodwin, 2008). In 1890 Wellesley finally offered Calkins the position, with the condition that she would study psychology for a year. There were very few psychology programs available at that time, and even fewer that would accept women applicants. This made it difficult for her to have the one year of study needed to teach the subject of psychology. During the following year Calkins also worked unofficially at the psychology laboratory at Clark University with Edmund Sanford. He also assisted Calkins in the creation of a psychology lab for Wellesley College, equipped with state of the art equipment. That psychology lab officially opened in 1891, the same year that Calkins began teaching psychology at Wellesley (Goodwin, 2008). After being invited to sit in on some of the lectures at Harvard, Calkins formally requested that she be allowed to sit in on these lectures. She decided to try to take classes at the Harvard Annex taught by Josiah Royce, a Harvard professor, because the Annex was not an official part of Harvard University. Royce, however, pushed her to try to attend regular Harvard classes because not all of his classes were available through the Annex. Charles Eliot, the president of Harvard, believed strongly that the two sexes should be educated separately. But it was not until the pressure applied to him from both James and Royce was combined with a petition from Calkins father and a letter from the president of Wellesley College that Eliot finally agreed in 1892. Calkins would be allowed to attend James and Royce’s seminars on psychology, but it was officially stated that she would not be a student of the University entitled to registration. (Furumoto, 1980). Calkins felt like she needed to do more graduate work. She continued teaching while simultaneously studying with J. Munsterberg until 1894 when she studied full-time for a year. At that time Munsterberg petitioned Harvard to admit Calkins as a Ph. D. candidate, but was refused. The Harvard psychology department held an informal examination of Calkins, which she passed in 1895. The same year, while at Harvard, Calkins presented her theses, where she completed a series of experimental studies on association. She developed a procedure known as paired-associate learning (Goodwin, 2008). Her subjects first studied stimulus-response pairs comprised of sequentially presented color patches and numbers, and then they tried to recall the umber responses when shown the color stimuli. Her results showed that recall was enhanced by each of the four factors: frequency, vividness, recency, and primacy. These four conditions could strengthen associations, and found that frequency was the most important. (Goodwin, 2008). Calkins then returned to Wellesley College where she continued to teach until her retirement in 1927. From about 1900, her publications became less research-oriented as she developed her major theoretical contribution to psychology, self-psychology. Calkins maintained that psychology could be the study of mental life, but that the central fact of psychology must be that all consciousness contains an element of the self (Goodwin, 2008). In 1900, Calkins published her first article on a system of psychology of the self, a topic which became her primary focus. Over the next thirty years, Calkins continued to present, develop, and defend her theory of self-psychology, gradually moving more towards philosophy and away from the psychological trend towards behaviorism. There is evidence that her primary interest was always philosophy rather than psychology. She was teaching psychology for almost a decade before another faculty member trained in psychology joined the philosophy department. (Furumoto, 1980). In 1905, Calkins became the first woman elected president of the American Psychological Association. As her interests shifted to philosophy, she became the first woman elected president of the other APA, the American Philosophical Association in 1918. All of her work in philosophy as well as psychology came to center around the importance of self. She used it as a way to reconcile competing theoretical schools of thought including structuralism and functionalism (Furumoto, 1980). She believed that self-psychology was a method of resolving disputes between structuralism, which analyzes consciousness in to its basic elements, and functionalism, which focuses on how consciousness serves to adapt the individual to the environment (Goodwin, 2008). Among her major contributions to psychology are the invention of the paired associate’s technique and her work in self based psychology. Calkins believed that the conscious self was the primary focus of psychology. Despite Mary Whiton Calkins contributions, Harvard maintains its refusal to grant the degree she earned and her influence on psychology is often overlooked by both scholars and students. She was passionate about her beliefs, even when Harvard was going to award her a PhD. from Radcliffe College; she refused to accept the degree because she did not agree with the â€Å"injustice of unequal treatment of the sexes based on the implicit assumption that there are inherent differences in their mentalities† (Furumoto, 1980). Mary Whiton Calkins was a pioneer in psychology. She was responsible for the creation of a method of memorization called the paired associate technique, founder of one of the early psychological laboratories in the United States, and creator of a system of self-psychology (Furumoto, 1980). Conclusion Mary Whiton Calkins was a prolific writer in both psychology and philosophy, publishing four books and over a hundred papers divided among the fields. In addition to being the first woman president of the American Psychological Association, Calkins also served as president of the American Philosophical Association in 1918. The topics Mary Whiton Calkins studied in psychology covered a wide range including dream research, animal consciousness, and memorization. In 1892 she presented a report on a dream study that she had worked on with Sanford at the first meeting of the APA. Thirteen years later she was elected president of that same organization. In 1895 she returned to Wellesley as an associate professor, and in 1898 she became a full professor, a position she held until she retired in 1927 (Furumoto, 1980). On February 26, 1930, Calkins died of inoperable cancer, one year after retiring from Wellesley as a Research Professor and turning over that department to Eleanor Gamble. Her teaching career spanned forty two years. She died with two honorary degrees, a doctor of letters from Columbia University and a doctor of laws from Smith College. However, she never received the degree that she worked for at Harvard. In 1927 a group of Harvard alumni petitioned the president of Harvard requesting that the university grant Calkins her Ph. D. , but they were denied (Furumoto, 1980).

The Geology of Bricks

The common brick is one of our greatest inventions, an artificial stone. Brickmaking transforms low-strength mud into strong materials that can endure for centuries when properly cared for. Clay Bricks The main ingredient of bricks is clay, a group of surface minerals that arise from the weathering of igneous rocks. By itself, clay is not useless—making bricks of plain clay and drying them in the sun makes a sturdy building stone. Having some sand in the mix helps keep these bricks from cracking. Sundried clay is little different from soft shale. Many of the most ancient buildings in the early Middle East were made of sun-dried bricks. These generally lasted about a generation before the bricks deteriorated from neglect, earthquakes or the weather. With old buildings melted into piles of clay, the ancient cities were periodically levelled and new cities built on top. Over the centuries these city mounds, called tells, grew to considerable size. Making sun-dried bricks with a little straw or dung helps bind the clay and yields the equally ancient product called adobe. Fired Bricks The ancient Persians and Assyrians made stronger bricks by roasting them in kilns. The process takes several days, raising the temperature above 1000 Â °C for a day or so, then cooling gradually. (This is much hotter than the mild roasting or calcination used to make top dressing for baseball fields.) The Romans advanced the technology, as they did with concrete and metallurgy, and spread fired brick to every part of their empire. Brickmaking has been basically the same ever since. Until the 19th century, every locality with a clay deposit built its own brickworks because transport was so expensive. With the rise of chemistry and the Industrial Revolution, bricks joined steel, glass and concrete as sophisticated building materials. Today brick is made in many formulations and colors for a variety of demanding structural and cosmetic applications. Chemistry of Brick Firing Over the period of firing, brick clay becomes a metamorphic rock. Clay minerals break down, release chemically bound water, and change into a mixture of two minerals, quartz and mullite. The quartz crystallizes very little in that time, remaining in a glassy state. The key mineral is mullite (3AlO3 Â · 2SiO2), a blended compound of silica and alumina that is quite rare in nature. It is named for its occurrence on the Isle of Mull in Scotland. Not only is mullite hard and tough, but it also grows in long, thin crystals that function like the straw in adobe, binding the mix in an interlocking grip. Iron is a lesser ingredient that oxidizes into hematite, accounting for the red color of most bricks. Other elements including sodium, calcium and potassium help the silica melt more easily—that is, they act as a flux. All of these are natural parts of many clay deposits. Is There Natural Brick? Earth is full of surprises—consider the natural nuclear reactors that once existed in Africa—but could it naturally produce true brick? There are two kinds of contact metamorphism to consider. First, what if very hot magma or erupted lava engulfed a body of dried clay in a way that allows the moisture to escape? I would give three reasons that rule this out: 1. Lavas are rarely as hot as 1100 Â °C.2. Lavas would cool quickly once they engulf surface rocks.3. Natural clays and buried shales are wet, which would draw even more heat from lava. The only igneous rock with enough energy to even have a chance to fire proper brick would be the superhot lava known as komatiite, thought to have reached 1600 Â °C. But the Earths interior has not reached that temperature since the Early Proterozoic Era more than 2 billion years ago. And at that time there was no oxygen in the air, making the chemistry even more unlikely. On the Isle of Mull, mullite appears in mudstones that have been baked in lava flows. (It also has been found in pseudotachylites, where friction on faults heats dry rock to melting.) These are probably a far cry from real brick, but you should go there yourself to make sure. Second, what if an actual fire could bake the right kind of sandy shale? In fact, that does happen in coal country. Forest fires can start coal beds burning, and once started these coal-seam fires may go on for centuries. Sure enough, shale overlying coal fires can turn into a red clinkery rock thats close enough to true brick. Unfortunately, this occurrence has become common as human-caused fires start in coal mines and culm piles. A significant fraction of global greenhouse-gas emissions arises from coal fires. Today we outdo nature in this obscure geochemical stunt.