For our next meeting ... (Thursday 03 Mar, 3:30pm)

Having decided to move forward with a joint QSG project on the current issue of Madison school closing/construction/redistricting, we need to come up with a specific action plan quickly. Only some of us will be able to devote time to this project in the next few weeks, so we should be clear on who is willing and able to do what. Those that can't work on this particular project are of course welcome to continue to attend our (now weekly!) meetings and bring ideas on the effort. But for those who are going to own a piece of this research effort, the time has come for making some claims about research site, research strategy, and research questions.

Each student interested in being on the working project team through the end of the semester needs to propose a combination of four things:

(1) A single research population or site (eg. one particular neighborhood or school or other geographical subset of Madison to follow through this referendum battle) along with justification as to why that particular site would be most interesting or productive.
(2) A data source and collection method (eg. open-ended interviews with individuals, structured interviews with organizational actors for network analysis, review of media production for content analysis, review of previous rounds of school redistricting for historical analysis, phone survey of households for combined qualitative/quantitative analysis, review of published statistical and geographic data for geodemographic analysis, etc.) Again, also need a justification as to why you want to investigate this particular slice.
(3) An initial/example set of questions to ask of the data source.
(4) A research question and hypothesis that sensibly links all of these together (I tend to save this one for last).

What we want to end up with, I think, is either (a) a single research site (say, one neighborhood) with people working on a number of different media slices, or (b) a single media slice that people want to explore over a small set of research sites (neighborhoods). Any more complicated mixing of the two would be too much for our small group to bear.

What we might find is that everyone has a different view of the best site and the best research method, which would mean some compromise on one or the other. Come to the meeting prepared to fight for your views but also prepared to relinquish either your favorite site or your favorite research strategy.

If in the end we can get enough people working on the same site/strategy to divide up the labor a bit, we'll have a better chance of overall success. For example, if three students all want to do "on the ground" interviews in the same neighborhood with residents about their media habits, their views on the school issue, and their relationships to local organizations, those three will all be able to share the intellectual work of dreaming up sensible questions and the research work of running around on a Saturday afternoon talking to folks. (It will also make the process of getting IRB approval much easier.)

Other combinations might be more amenable to individual effort. If one person wanted to cover a content analysis of the Cap Times and another wanted to churn through State Journal coverage, we'd have that data set built up quite nicely. If one person wanted to do some historical background, they could present their findings back to the whole group and I'm sure we'd all find it valuable. But too many folks all spun out on their own might be hard to manage, so we should search for some combination of effort at the center.

One final suggestion: Post your votes for (1) and (2) to this weblog before coming to next Thursday's meeting, and we can have a preview of what the group is thinking before we sit down to hash out our collective decision. You can contact Greg if you're having trouble posting.

Let the wrangling begin!