The aim of the second assignment is to give you the experience of conducting an interview and transcribing an interview and reflecting on the process. It is the reflection of the process that is the objective of the assignment, not the findings from your interviews.
You will need to select a topic that is least controversial and unlikely to cause distress.
Some example topics to consider are below:
Reflections of your first day at Curtin University
Reasons for becoming a volunteer
Experiences of student housing
Experiences of an international student living in Perth
Experiences of using social media (e.g. Twitter, Facebook)
Attitudes to road safety strategies - e.g. speed cameras, fines, demerit points
Experience of temporary disability or inapacitation - e.g. breaking a leg, virus.
It is the process that we are concerned about and not the findings per se. The object of the exercise is certainly not to get people discussing things that they would rather not. You will need to use your judgment here.
You are asked to transcribe one interview and submit the transcript. The reason you are submitting the transcript is to demonstrate that you have actually completed the process - the content of the transcription is not the issue.
You are also asked to submit a reflection paper -- what went well what was a disaster what you would do better next time.
Assignment 2
Word count: 2000 words reflective paper plus transcript
a) Transcribe an Interview of one person on ONE of the above topics
b) Write a reflective paper of your experiences (2000 words).
Some of the topics that you should address in the reflective paper include:
How you gained access to the setting and ongoing issues of access
Your role, relationships with persons in setting (e.g., reciprocity, rapport)
Who your informants were, sampling issues - how you decided who to interview
The type and quality of data collected-field notes, interviews (what kind of notes did you take, technology used and any considerations associated with using particular technologies, issues with audio-recorded interviews, questions asked in interviews, how they worked, etc.)
Ethical issues
Your feelings
The mistakes you made
The good decisions you made
Discuss your reflection in terms of the literature (cite literature that you used to make decisions, any literature consistent or inconsistent with your own experiences of conducting an interview and reflect on the reasons why).
These are the kinds of things you should discuss in your paper, but do not go through this list in a rote manner; depending on your experience, some issues will be more important than others. The paper should not be an analysis of your interview topic. You should report substantive findings that are emerging from the interviews only insofar as this is relevant to your fieldwork methods (e.g., the process of preliminary analysis of data or theoretical notes or how they affected you second interview).
Attachment:- sample transcript_assignment.pdf