Week 2 Begins!

To put it in the wise words of Ron Burgundy...

One day it's fun and drinks, some introduction to how the systems work, some perusing the course work and a general idea of what the next month should look like - to full blown double-assignments with similar deadlines and an exam at the end of the month!

The first assignment is that group assignment I mentioned in my previous post. Now I've read it through properly and I feel safe in saying my read of the article by Ekström was right. It's pretty flawed.

The sample size is small, which isn't necessarily an issue for a qualitative study, but it feels odd to claim at numerous points how big and wide-spanning your study is when your sample size is 16 people from 11 municipalities, in a country with 45,000 people in the field in 290 municipalities? My classmates seemed to agree on this matter, but we ARE just first-years after all. I'm reigning myself in a bit.

Other things we noted was an inconsistency in reporting the data; for instance, the semi-structured interview questions mentioned "changed" after the pilot study, but there is no indication of in what way which puts into question if those first respondants can even qualify for the final results. We really questioned a lot of the study, for a good 2 hours, and we still need to sit down and write a proper summary of our thoughs. Once that's done, I'll post something more coherent.

But then came the second assignment, the individual one. Oh boy. We are to choose, based on course literature, to discuss potential problems (or at least feelings we have surrounding problems) in elder and/or child care. This could be super interesting to delve into, but the deadline for these assignments is September 15th and September 17th. Not impossible, but the speed at which we went from nothing to something.

Should be said - I AM enjoying it. A lot. I'd rather this than crawling the walls in boredom. I'd rather this than sit in an office and do nothing, learn nothing, and just tap away at my keyboard making another god damn walk cycle for a game that won't see the light of day because funding is about to be pulled.

I'm not bitter, I promise.

Anyway - the week's just getting started. Onwards!