Up a Creek Without a Paddle

This is a reading response for Week 5 of the Research Colloquium course.

After reading through Schram (2003) I feel even more like an intrepid voyageur, going up the creek without a paddle. I’ve got a shadowy vision for where I’m going. I’ve got some maps that others have drawn, as seen in the dissertations we’re reading as part of this course. There are bits and ideas I’m collecting from those who have journeyed through this terrain before me. But there is still no clear or definitive way to get to my research question.

Schram suggests that getting at the research question is NOT like “driving down a clearly marked road to a scenic destination according to a travel club’s map” (p. 49). As the research question develops, Schram suggests a process of tacking, as a sailing analogy, between questions that address the big picture (breadth of vision) and those that examine a narrowing view (precision of focus) in order to get to the explicit research question. Schram shares an example that provides a glimpse into how this can be accomplished, but this does not specifically help me accomplish this task. The research question can only be created by walking through the process. 

At this point in time, it feels as if I’m walking through a Canadian boreal forest, rife with obstructions and unseen barriers. Literally, up a creek without a paddle. I feel the need of a trusted voyageur to mentor and walk beside me, to get me through this rough patch of ground. Someone who’s been through a similar swampy experience. My wandering around, going through bouts of research and readings, is time consuming and sometimes unproductive, leaving me tired and feeling lost. 

Pecaski McLennan references Schram (2003) to encourage researchers to understand and work within the boundaries of time and circumstance, while continuing to strive to reveal “any possible truths and meaning manifested in the experience or words or participants” in the research” (p. 54). It’s this struggle with time and circumstance that keeps impacting my research focus. I’m walking into whitewater rapids without a clear plan to find my way through.

While the role of voyageur and guide may traditionally be considered the mandate of a supervisor, I feel the need for a critical friend, someone willing to walk through the muck and track back, tack right or left, along with me. This could be a mentor who will wander and make the path with me. The role of the supervisor in this journey, would be as critical guide and map checker, to ensure I move my question forward, justify my research direction, and ensure I’m going somewhere with my question (Schram, 2003). 

So I’ll remember this T.S. Eliot quote I keep coming back to as a guide for my steps: “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

References:

Pecaski McLennan, D. (2007). Kinder-caring: Exploring the Use and Effects of Sociodrama in a Kindergarten Classroom. (PhD dissertation). University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario.

Schram, T. (2003). Forming research questions. In Conceptualizing qualitative inquiry: Mindwork for fieldwork in education and the social sciences (pp. 49–64). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice Hall.

Wikiquote. (n.d.). Antonio Machado. Retrieved from https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Antonio_Machado

Image Attribution: Stream Photo by Ricardo Alfaro on Unsplash

Person on log over a stream Photo by Zach Searcy on Unsplash