I walked into this week’s meeting fully ready to start inputting our data, only to realize that I was seriously jumping the gun. My professor immediately slowed me down and told me that our last step before the actual analysis starts is cleaning the data. In this case, “cleaning” refers to going through all the transcripts while listening to the corresponding audio and correcting any words or sentences that might be wrong, or changing acronyms that might be wrong. This is to make sure they’re as accurate as possible when we do upload them to our software.
It is certainly a tedious process, but I was sort of excited as I was going to actually be doing something. As I did the work throughout the week, I enjoyed feeling like I was actually contributing.
We also talked about the interview I listened to the week before with the principal of the school and one of their best teachers. I asked my professor about some of the terms they used and she wasn’t sure about what a few of them were, which shocked me. I determined this came from the expectation most students have, in which their teachers know everything about what they’re teaching.
I guess in this case I assumed my professor knew everything there was to know about this study. I had to remind myself that she’s human too, and is bound to forget things, or forget to ask questions about things she’s unsure of. That’s not considering the fact that all of these interviews were done several months ago. Most of all, I have to remember that this experience is a learning process for both of us, and that we’re in it together, working towards one goal.