This week at FocusHOPE has been a lot of getting back to the grind of work! I finally did learn about my second project though. I will be helping out with a Focus group on how to improve pedestrian safety along a stretch of davison. Since they are trying to keep the event as laid back and as un-bureaucratic as possible, there will be no surveys or anything, just an audio recording of the event. So my job will be to transcribe parts of the meeting as well as code for reactions/ general direction of discussion during the event, which should be fun. I took a class first semester last year on coding behaviors too, so i am glad that i am able to us some of my school knowledge as I prepare for the focus group.
As for the rest of my work, it is still chugging along. I basically need to go back through a lot of the documents and find keywords and highlight every graph and create a super index of terms. It feels like itll be kind of tedious, but hopefully itll keep me busy. I think since Im on the second half, Im starting to feel the crunch more. Hopefully thatll help me stay focused more! But i do think that the addition of the second project is enough diversity for me to keep interested in both my projects, so thats good.
Wow transcribing for a focus group sounds pretty cool (not really sure how focus groups run exactly but it sounds like it’d be pretty cool to observe/transcribe). And it’s great that your academic work came in handy in the real world! Hope the focus group goes well! And it’s too bad that the other project is tedious… 🙁
That event sounds very different. I am sure it will be a success though, because i realized the surveys are quite a pain for participants. Diversity in projects is also a bonus too, because it keeps you from becoming complacent and bored. Good luck going through all your documents if you have at least half as much as me, it could take forever.
You’ll have to tell me what focus groups are like, because that’s one aspect of research I really haven’t had any exposure to yet.
I completely know what the tedious work is like, but sometimes its nice to do sort of repetitive work; hope it gets easier for you!