A new language
DS2 doctoral seminar focuses on quantitative research methodologies. Today’s class re-emphasized an observation I made earlier in this course. I think learning quantitative methodologies is like learning a foreign language. Like learning a new language, just when you think you can handle the flow of a conversation with some trusted friends or people you know, you get thrown into a new situation or context, with a subsequent opportunity to stretch your ability to use the language. This new experience often shakes your confidence with this new language and you may tend to regress and not try speaking for a while.
So too with quantitative methodologies and the unique language, vocabulary, and fluencies that come with this topic. I may be considered literate in most circumstances that require basic conversational competencies, but when given new contexts or scenarios in my quantitative conversations, I am uniquely ‘un-literate’ and out of my element. Today was such a day.
Last night, while working on my research proposal, I felt competent and literate. I was able to speak with fluency about descriptive statistics, reiterating the importance and use of mean, median, mode, and variances, with intermittent conversations about standard deviations, and yes, even z scores. I had moments when ANOVA and t-tests rolled out of my mouth and they made sense to me … at the time. I thought I had acquired some of the core vocabulary relating to correlations and could, incorrectly or not, apply chi-squared and correlational coefficients into the conversation. I thought this new language had stuck!
For those who know this language, you may look at this and think, how could you not know these things? It’s just basic statistics after all!
After today’s class on regression and lines of best fit, I’m thrown back into the messiness of the literacy, with a daunting realization that my fluencies did not stick. I have not yet acquired the basics of statistical understanding. None of it is sticking in my memory. None of it is making sense. I need to go back to the basic vocabulary and exercises we’ve done in class. But I know that it can and will stick … sometime … if I practice … and if I’m motivated to make it stick.
This is what it feels like to be a life long learner – always on the edge of new possibilities. The challenge is that it feels uncomfortable! It shows up my weakness in statistics, probabilities, and quantitative research methodologies, in order to speak from a knowledgeable position. So why should anyone push themselves to learn this new language? Why have I pushed myself to learn about quantitative research methodologies, other than to acquire this credit towards my PhD? It’s in the doing and through the struggle that learning will come.
The best part, just as in learning a new language, is knowing I can gain this new knowledge, with the support and encouragement of friends and family, if not with me, alongside me. I can turn to my DS2 cohort, the instructors of this course, others in my global network or academics and scholars to keep practicing, to help me make this stick. DS2 is a short course and it will end in a few days, but this new learning needs to continue as I move further into the PhD experience. This new language may not stick with exceptional fluency. That may take longer than I have, but I can get better at it with motivation, practice, and experience. As I walk into quantitative labyrinth, I will not walk alone. There are other quantitative researchers I can reach out to, those I can walk behind, or maybe even walk beside.
