So is this description of my study kosher?
My participants are 8 teenagers who use computers at home for leisure in an expert capacity. I'm looking at how they think they learn, their construction of expertise, and my big thing is constructing definitions of expertise in this space, arguing that children view computer expertise differently to how adults (or have traditionally viewed) view expertise. I am also examining gendered relations within this field of gaining expertise within a traditionally masculine field of technology.
posted by Nicola @ 10:20 AM
2 Comments:
one challenge i can see is how you decided they were experts. they don't sound much different to lots of kids i know (and most of those actually aren't experts in the 'can you do everything you want to' sense. i am sure we have talked about this, but maybe some comments on how you are going to introduce the notion of expertise into the thesis would be useful. it will need tob es et up in the intro, and then fleshed out in your design. what do youhave as a definition (and i don't mean a clinical definition necessary, but a set of ideas about it
The participants were chosen through the snowball sampling of where someone had recommended them because that someone had thought they were an expert. All of them said they were an expert, except for Joe who thought he was on his way to becoming an expert. However, all of them rated themselves personally as at least a 3 on the scale of great expert (1) to good expert (5). So the participants think they are experts.
I didn't have to decide whether they were experts. And I agree - they don't sound much different to lots of kids. The difference is that they thought of themselves and others thought of them as computer experts.
Yes, I agree that this will have to be set up in the intro and fleshed out in the methodology. My title has changed to reflect the focus on expertise throughout the thesis.
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