sick-not-tired

[sick-not-tired]

A New Direction

I want to take this blog in a new direction, so let’s start with what it used to be.

This blog used to be an assignment. I was required to post for a research class that I took for my university degree. I enjoyed the act of writing those posts, and had they not been marked and graded and required, I think that blogging would have become a fun pastime for me. 

Now I have covid. Thanks to my underlying condition, I have been confined to my bed, or now, my room for about 8 days. I am getting restless, I have been thinking a lot about the past few months of my life, and I am looking for an outlet. As such, I want to revamp this blog to be something more than an assignment. I want to talk about my passions, and my illness , why those two aspects of myself do not work well together, and how I’m dealing with it.

I will talk about other things as well, of course, but I want to provide myself and others a space to talk about what they are dealing with, and how they are still leading important, fun lives despite their conditions. My next post will be my diagnosis story, and maybe some of MY story. Stay tuned.

[sick-not-tired]

Hi Griffin,

I really enjoyed reading your responses this semester. They always seem to lend a little humour to topics that can end up feeling a little bland at times.

I can really relate to your progression in ability to find credible resources. Learning this semester, the best ways to use the Lakehead Omni site has also really helped me find some “juicier information” for my research as well. I find now that I go through the academic library rather than google, I can not only far more credible, but also far more interesting information; these academic papers seem to go deeper into topics they speak about, and look at those topics from angles that are much more fun.

I also found your thoughts on ethics really insightful. While I feel more comfortable with my understanding of ethics overall, I completely understand and empathize with the worry about making sure you’re doing everything right. This semester we learned a baseline, and it made me realize how truly important ethical research is, but because I obviously still don’t know everything, I worry that I am making an error that could profoundly negatively impact someone.

I completely agree about feeling like you need to get better at sampling. I found it very confusing to figure out appropriate research sample size, and what data is worth including in your final product. I found that a lot of the helpful knowledge I had in this area came from a Biostatistics class I took last year, so I wonder if the addition of a basic level of statistical understanding to a course like this would be beneficial.

A few responses were a little short, but this was overall a great post with a lot of good ideas!

Blog Post 9/10

Reflecting on my experience as an outdoor researcher. 

 3 Things that I know…

Understanding qualitative and quantitative research on a deeper level.

Before taking this class, I had learned about qualitative and quantitative research and data back in high school but more in a broader term. It was interesting to learn more about qualitative and quantitative research and learning the various terms researchers use when doing their measurements.

2. It is very important to find and use credible sources when doing research. 

When I am doing research for a certain topic, I always try to find credible and reliable sources. I know this is important because there is a lot of misinformation out there on the world wide web. Before, when I would do my own research I would not dive as deep into the sources I would look at. I tend to use the first page on google most of the time because you would think the better websites would be at the top. That is not the case all the time. This class has helped me better understand where to find good sources. Not just from Google but from other search engines such as Lakehead University’s Omni database. Learning how to find better resources allows me to get juicier information that deepens the specific topic I am researching.  

3. Open and closed questions

  Open questions are questions that can be answered freely. While closed questions are questions that can be answered with a yes or no or with a set of premade answers ( A, B, C, D). Both types of questions are beneficial for collecting information, especially when gathering qualitative and quantitive data. I know how to build solid questions based on what kind of response/information I am trying to get.   

Things I am still confused about…

Ethics 

I had a tough time trying to figure out some of the lessons on ethics. There are so many rules and guidelines to follow when conducting ethical research that it makes it a little confusing for me to follow what I can and can not do for research. I am also not fully sure as to how there are so many ways research needs to be ethically reviewed that I still do not understand. I understand ethics that which is to maintain privacy for the participants, I just do not get all the strict guidelines and rules to follow. I worry sometimes if I am doing it properly or not because I am unsure. 

2. Taking the next step after collecting data

I have an understanding of how to collect the data but it is after I get the data I do not know what to do for the next process, especially with quantitative data. When it comes to quantitative data, I do not get the process of coding and putting it all in spreadsheets and graphs. I guess it is mainly from a lack of experience doing that kind of stuff, but even just learning about the process of coding I did not get.   

3 Things I know for certain about myself as an outdoor recreation researcher…  

There are so many different opportunities I can take. 

This class has taught me that there is so much in terms of research that Outdoor recreation has to offer. Outdoor recreation is growing more and more and there are so many different types of research opportunities I can do. After doing research on skate trails for the podcast, it showed that research can be done on any topic. The guest speakers really helped in letting us know about the many outdoor recreation research opportunities out there and I definitely want to take advantage of those chances. 

2. Developing research questions and hypotheses. 

 I learned from this class how to develop better research questions and build a strong hypothesis around them. This is important to me as an outdoor reccer because I can develop strong questions focused on my field of study. I am mainly good at coming up with solid open questions.  

3. My invisible backpack.

I learned more about my own invisible backpack and what that means to me and my perspective of life and how fortunate I am to be able to have the chance to participate in doing research in the outdoor recreation field. 

3 Things I need to develop and learn to build my skills…

1. Surveys 

I would prefer to do interviews and get more personal answers if I were to conduct research which is why I need to continue working and developing getting better at creating surveys. This means I need to work on creating better-closed questions so I can optimize the usable data I am getting. I can do this by learning from surveys that are out and finding more about what makes a good survey question. Depending on the survey most people do not want to spend a long time writing their answers which is why I need to get better at closed questions.     

2. Sampling I have a hard time figuring out what is important enough to include and what is not. This is why I need to get better at being able to separate usable data and non-usable data which will help to make organizing data easier and more efficient. For future research projects having a strong understanding of what type of sampling to use and what type of population to sample on will make it easier to choose how to go about the process. 

3. Interviewing 

Interviewing is a practice that I can always afford to get better at especially when it comes to research interviews.   

[sick-not-tired]

Hi Molly, 

Great Post!

You went into a lot of detail here and I liked how you gave all 9 question types in your answer to the first prompt. I think this shows what you know in a really good and convincing way. I can also really relate to your feelings that you now better understand how to effectively carry out literature reviews. I also really relate to your second response to the second prompt. I wonder how useful the understanding of blogging and podcasts will be to us down the line; while podcasting seems to still be booming and looks like it will continue to do so for at least a few years, blogging has been on its way out of internet relevancy for almost 10 years now. Additionally, the formatting of the Podcasting assignment lent itself to one member of the group having very little to do with research at all. I wonder if the group members that edited audio files rather than engaging with Thunder Bay research will have gaps in their education related to research in years to come.

I did notice that you only included two responses to the second prompt, though I would completely understand if that was due to discrepancies between the required content for this response and the desired length. My blog response this week went well over the 1000 words, just in order to get half of what I wanted to say out.

Lastly, I loved your final additional section on personal ideas for implementation in your research. I found it quite difficult as well to organize my thoughts and resources, so I loved your ideas for remedying this. Great job this semester Molly!

OUTD 2511 Blog Prompt 9-10

 Three things I know for certain about outdoor recreation research: 

One thing I know is what qualitative data is and how it’s used. Researchers reflect on ideas before data collection and develop conceptual findings (Neuman 2018). This data is collected by a variety of methods including interviews and observations. Qualitative data is useful when you’re not dealing with hard data but are pursuing a more story-based result.

I also know the nine different question types that can occur during a qualitative interview which are as follows:

- Introducing questions are used when you want a detailed description from the interviewee.  The interviewee is prompted to give a personal account of a situation in this instance (Neuman 2018).  

- Follow-up questions are used to get additional information from the interviewee (Neuman 2018).

- Probing questions are asked when more details are required, typically because the interviewee’s response to a question was brief or not specific enough. These differ from follow-up questions. Where follow-up questions prompt the interviewee to expand on a particular point, probing questions initiate a general expansion (Neuman 2018).

- Specifying questions are asked to get more detailed descriptions about parts of the interviewees answers that lack specifics.

- Direct questions are typically introduced toward the end of the interview and are questions that have not yet been answered or discussed by the interviewee (Neuman 2018).

- Indirect questions are asked to get a feeling of how the interviewee feels about the actions and thoughts of other people. Interpretation of these answers can be complicated because it needs to be determined if the answers and opinions given are reflective of how the interviewee really feels or if they are answers that the interviewee feels would be correct and expected (Neuman 2018).

- Structuring questions are used to keep the interview focused and on track if it has gone off topic or if the question has already been answered and it’s time to move on (Neuman 2018).

3.  Additionally, I know how to do a literature review. Literature reviews typically begin by defining and refining a topic and then designing a search strategy. Research reports are then located, notes are taken, and finally a review is written. When writing reviews it is important to “critically read articles and other literature.” (Neuman 2018) Good organizational skills  are very beneficial at this stage as well.  Things like keeping track of research in organized documents, effectively tracking URL’s and prioritizing articles you know you’ll be using are some examples of these.

These two things I am still confused by: 

One thing that confuses me is the absence of a real world application of this content if you don’t intend on writing a thesis. It’s unclear to me exactly when I’d use this information outside of the classroom. I’m sure there’s practical applications for this information but it’s not something that was initially clear to me and I am still fuzzy on.

I also wonder why a podcast format and Tumbler posts were chosen over discussion posts and papers. Technology and social engagement methods on the internet move and change quickly and I wonder if they’ll be relevant further down the road. Additionally, I feel that there was a lacking of practical applications on what was taught and that did not help me learn as quickly or easily.

These three things I know for certain about me as an outdoor recreation researcher:

One thing that I learned about myself as an outdoor recreation researcher is that the field of research is not something I excel at or find particularly fulfilling. It is just something that I don’t particularly enjoy and just feels like something I need to do.

I also learned that I prefer working with qualitative data vs. quantitative data. Basically I feel that talking with and interviewing someone is more engaging and rewarding than just interpreting numbers and analyzing data.

It is clear to me that I enjoy researching things I already have an interest in, as I would assume most people do. An example of this is things relating to plants and biology - like the Herbarium I’m working on for one of my classes. I enjoy this topic and put a lot of effort into the project because I care about doing well and producing good work. Although this actually makes me feel anxious (my interest in it makes the stakes higher because I want it to turn out well) it does motivate and encourage me too. In comparison, when it’s a topic I’m not interested in I’ll procrastinate and feel an overwhelming sense of frustration. Obviously the end product suffers in this scenario.

These two areas I need to spend time developing/learning in order to feel more confident in my skills: 

One area I would like to improve in is my survey skills. I feel that I could develop more confidence if I had more experience in this area. The more opportunities to conduct interviews the better. Participating in other peoples’ surveys would also be beneficial and allow me the opportunity to gather ideas. I’d also like to better my preparation beforehand so that I feel more prepared and confident going in.

I would also like to improve my organizational skills. Whether it’s as simple as keeping search results on my computer organized or more involved like developing efficient time management skills, there are definitely areas I would like to improve on.

Some things I’d be looking at implementing when compiling research include:

Color coding files and folders

Organizing open tabs on the computers

Utilizing physical folders when necessary

Developing a manageable calendar and scheduling method to chart out goals, deadlines and expectations

Focusing on time management throughout the project

Being flexible and adaptable depending on the method of organization that each individual project requires

References:

Neuman, W. L., & Robson, K. (2018). Chapter 4 Reviewing the Scholarly Literature and Planning a Study. In Basics of Social Research Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (4th Canadian Edition). Pearson.

Neuman, W. L., & Robson, K. (2018). Chapter 6 Qualitative and Quantitative Measurement. In Basics of Social Research Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (4th Canadian Edition). Pearson.

Neuman, W. L., & Robson, K. (2018). Chapter 12 Qualitative Interviewing. In Basics of Social Research Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (4th Canadian Edition). Pearson.

[sick-not-tired]

Final Response

These Three Things I Know for Certain About Outdoor Recreation Research:

1.       The subjects of your study matter

The subjects of your study form both the experimental and control groups and are the yardstick by which a variable or theory is tested (Neuman & Robson, 2014). Choosing the right subjects for your research means selecting a group that is representative- both statistically and qualitatively- of your group. The group should be large enough to be an accurate sample, small enough to be a possible venture, wide enough to get a big picture of your area of research, and yet specific enough to rule out large outside influences. One must also be on the lookout for power dynamic breaches like abuse of power, abuse of trust, or conflicts of interest (Neuman & Robson, 2014). The entirety of a study can crumble based on only the poor selection or unethical treatment of subjects, making it not only one of the first, but also one of the most important parts of planning an experiment.

2.       Everything is a matter of perspective

Lets explore the hypothetical of two studies being done on the treatment of wilderness trip leaders: one focused on women vs. men leading women, and the other, women vs. men leading men. In the former, the trip leaders are always treated with respect and trust, while in the other, the women were not. The results of the first study could suggest that client sexism did not exist, and that women and men are equally respected by participants, while the latter would suggest the exact opposite. The perspectives and biases from which you design your study has an effect on it, no matter how objective you aim to be. If you do not have the lived experience or knowledge to design a study on a certain topic, your results will not be representative.

3.       Focusing on recreation can leave pieces of research missing

This one is a discovery I have made on my own throughout the semester, rather than being strictly taught to me. For my podcast project, we focused in on identity in the Thunder Bay outdoor recreation space. I found myself enthralled with the topic of identity as it relates to one’s feelings about participating in outdoor recreation, however I found myself frequently having to leave interesting concepts out because they did not meet the hyper-specific criteria for our project. The issue here is that outdoor recreation is so entangled with almost every aspect of social psychology one sees in their day-to-day life, and yet we often don’t take one’s day to day life into account. Outdoor recreation as a concept needs more specific understanding, but this feeling of discovering a stone unturned and being unable to fully turn it leaves me pondering if we narrow things too completely.

 These Three Things I am Still Confused By:

1.       The boundaries between protecting your study and protecting your participants:

There is a well known ethical paradox in social and psychological research in which the researcher must find a perfect mid point between the advancement of knowledge and minimizing impacts on participants (Neuman & Robson, 2014). While the code of ethics addresses some hard and fast rules of harm reduction (Neuman & Robson, 2014), it seems to me that there is a large grey not addressed. For example, working with participants with past trauma, specially in recounting those stories, can be incredibly triggering and difficult. How does a researcher manage the likelihood that learning more about those who have experienced trauma, can set participants back in terms of mental and emotional recovery? Is the only option to remain impartial and offer up alternative resources someone can seek? I hope that there is more personal responsibility than that for researchers.

2.       How far academic outdoor recreation research can go in the future

Parks Canada and other related businesses have been doing their own independent applied studies for decades (Neuman & Robson, 2014), but research done on the field of outdoor recreation as a whole is just beginning. I wonder exactly how far this more generalized outdoor recreation research can go in the future, because outdoor rec has been shown to have so many similarities to group activity as a whole. At some point, will doing this specific research be seen as merely restating research that has already been done with other group situations, or will the small (yet important) differences continue to expand in coming years?

3.       How many people are working on the same research at once

I found that in this course we talk about research as almost being a solitary affair, however as our guest lecturers have stated, there is almost always other people involved to oversee, contribute, or act as impartial third parties to the study. I think this course could have benefitted from exploring these various relationships and the hierarchy of research teams further. I feel it would have given a more realistic look into what the world of research will really look like once we get there, which could have enticed some students to be more interested in continuing with research.

 These Three Things I Know for Sure About Myself as an Outdoor Recreation Researcher:

1.        I like to actually perform research rather than analyzing and writing about it

Throughout the podcast project, I very much enjoyed looking at the social media posts that I did my research on, but I had a lot of trouble scripting my part of the podcast. I very much enjoy writing and speaking, however writing in a scientific or professional manner feels stifling and cold in comparison to more narrative or creative writing tasks. I do not enjoy the rewording and restating of fact, the necessary repetition of scientific writing, or being unable to have any of my own ideas once the writing period has begun. All new or interesting ideas must happen before the research has even begun, and this can feel stifling and highly rooted in the hypothetical. The task of actually writing the paper or script feels sluggish and droning to me.

 2.        I do not think I could work on research with highly volatile or controversial topics

During one of our guest lectures, a research project was discussed that involved a participant with a particularly controversial opinion on women in the outdoors. This is not an uncommon thing either. Many researchers, depending on their topic, will end up in a similar situation, faced with opinions that they do not share or respect. I cannot see myself being able to maintain the necessary composure during this circumstance. I am a very sensitive person and I also have been told I do not hide my facial expressions well, so I do not believe I would be able to get through an in-person survey with someone who is rude or bigoted towards me or others in any way.

3.       I am very interested in women’s stories

In many areas, I find I have grown tired of constant reiteration of female struggles. I find that those who have lived experience as a woman already know what the findings will be, and those that do not have that lived experience are often not listening. However, I have found another side of women-centred social research this semester. Through articles I read throughout this course, such as, “Curating a Public Self” (linked below), I have found that studies done by women and for women are incredibly different than studies done about women. The topics that studies about women are still aiming to “definitively” prove over and over again are accepted as fact and as jumping off points for the real research to begin. It does not feel like being nagged about my own experience, but rather like someone finally telling me something about myself I did not already know. I hope to continue to look for studies and articles done by women and for women, not about them, because we are not objects of oppression but rather individuals with stories that are worth hearing.

  These Three Areas I Need to Spend Time Developing/Learning in Order to Feel More Confident in my Skills:

1.       Developing a Longer Attention Span

When selecting research questions, I often pick something I am very interested in in that moment. This allows me to put effort into a project and care deeply about finding the truth. However, it also means for me specifically, that all of these benefits go away once that topic is no longer interesting to me. The research process takes 7 steps (Neuman & Robson, 2014), and my short hyper fixation on the topic can only get me through approximately steps 1-4. Once the data is collected and the personal curiosity satisfied, my interest tanks. Applied research is far quicker than academic (Neuman & Robson, 2014), so this may be better suited to me, but in the future, I hope to learn to pick topics based off of long-standing interest rather than whims, and work on lengthening that attention span.

2.       Deconstruct my own Impostor Syndrome

Throughout the entirety of my outdoor recreation “career”, I have felt like I do not belong in the outdoor space. Objectively, I know that even in childhood I was firmly situated in the community through camping, swimming, canoeing, kayaking, and summer camps, but even now I will often say to myself that these ventures “don’t count” in some way or that “other people do more extreme things”. Impostor syndrome is an incredibly common response to environmental influences like sexism, racism, ableism, and homophobia, but one must be able to look past their feelings of falsehood in order to perform their best in work and scholarly situations.

3.       Taking the time to come up with better quality questions

A huge part of research, and specifically surveys, are the questions you are asking. This brainstorming process can seem easy once you’ve selected a thesis, but between developing your sample group, choosing your intended audience, avoiding confirmation bias, creating falsifiability, and following all ethics rules, the question development process can be lengthy and difficult (Neuman & Robson, 2014). The process requires “skill, practice, patience, and creativity,” (Neuman & Robson, 165, 2014). I would like to think I possess all of these traits, but as previous responses will show, I do lack patience. I hope to get better at this in order to create questions that dive deeper to what the research is looking for.

 Reference List:

 Gray, T., Norton, C., Breault-Hood, J., Christie, B., & Taylor, N. (2018). Curating a public self: Exploring social media images of women in the outdoors. Journal of Outdoor Recreation, Education, and Leadership, 10(2), 153–170. https://doi.org/10.18666/jorel-2018-v10-i2-8191

 Neuman, W. L., & Robson, K. (2014). 1: Doing Social Research. In Basics of Social Research (pp. 2–22). essay, Pearson Canada.

 Neuman, W. L., & Robson, K. (2014). 2: Theory and Social Research. In Basics of Social Research (pp. 24–42). essay, Pearson Canada.

 Neuman, W. L., & Robson, K. (2014). 3: Ethics in Social Research. In Basics of Social Research (pp. 43–63). essay, Pearson Canada.

 Neuman, W. L., & Robson, K. (2014). 8: Survey Research. In Basics of Social Research (pp. 162–192). essay, Pearson Canada.

[sick-not-tired]

Hi Molly, I was really intrigued by your post. 

I find the idea of this quiz very interesting. The idea that some activities/hobbies are not “recreational leisure activities” seems very strange as in theory any activity that you participate in during your free time, for fun, should qualify as recreational and for leisure. I also appreciated your review of the questions, specifically your addition of personal anecdotes. What I think you could have added to enhance the missing pieces of this quiz, would be that from the sounds of it, the quiz was fairly leading. It seemed that it offered pictures and explanations of what could be considered recreations, which would have swayed your opinions. Any kind of communication, implicit or explicit, could have lead to Demand Characteristics, causing subjects to answer differently than they might otherwise.

Another thing I wondered, was: what was the quiz for? Was it intended to be a survey style used for research purposes? In that case, it should not have had right or wrong answers to begin with. Was it intended simply as a trivia challenge? In that case, you are right in pointing out the issues with having such ambiguous, leading, and confusing questions.

Just as a personal interest question, I wonder if even professionals in the Outdoor Recreation world would be able to get full marks on this quiz? I doubt it would be possible, as I feel that the continued practice of Outdoor Recreation would only expand the grey areas exposed in the quiz to relative newcomers. This would be an interesting area of study going forward, as well as looking into misconceptions about recreation and leisure activities in general.

All in all, cool post Molly! It was great to hear about this quiz and your thoughts about it.

Recreational Activities Trivia Quiz

What is the context? 

I chose the Recreational Activities Questions and Answers Trivia Quiz. It asked a variety of questions regarding what is and what isn’t considered a recreational leisure activity. I got 6 out of 10 on this quiz because of the poorly written and ambiguous questions.

How well are the questions written? 

The questions are not written well. A lot of the questions could be interpreted in a variety of ways and the confusion in the wording made me get some questions wrong.

Might there be variety/ambiguity in the responses that lead to poor results?

Some questions are more open to interpretation and shouldn’t have a right or wrong ex. whether watching tv is or isn’t a recreational activity. 

What is considered leisure recreation for one might not be for another. For example, my grandma loves mowing her lawn and it’s her favorite thing to do in the summer. In her case it is recreation. This activity might be non-recreational for some and recreation for others. This is an example of where you can’t have a true or false selection.

The majority of the questions consider it to be a recreational activity only if there’s social engagement occurring as well. This is confusing because in this context, golf, for example, is considered a recreational activity if it’s done in a group setting but not if you’re golfing solo. 

This quiz is flawed because there is so much open to interpretation and many exceptions come up in their scenarios.

What are some strengths and weaknesses? 

Strengths - the type of question is varied. 

Weaknesses - images don’t necessarily match the question (ie. you were supposed to choose the correct recreation in the photo which was a photo of people diving into a pool. The correct answer was “skydiving”.)  Additionally, questions are ambiguous and open to interpretation and therefore can’t be marked right or wrong definitively.

Some of the answers in the quiz were also incorrect. In question 2, for example, it’s stated that there are no recreational/leisure activities that can be bad. Although this is open to interpretation it is also blatantly false. “There are good and bad forms of recreation” (Rossman, Schlatter 2019). Drug use is considered a recreational activity but also harmful and ill-advised.

How might it be improved? 

The quiz could be improved with less ambiguous questions with concrete right or wrong answers. A better introduction explaining their definition of recreational activities would help understand their perspective on the topic.

Consideration should be given to the definition of recreational activity. 

Some things the writers might want to consider to make for a better quiz include: implementing good question writing, not confusing beliefs with reality, and avoiding slang and abbreviations, ambiguity and vagueness. (Neumen, Robson 2018)

References:

https://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/story.php?title=mta3njixmq==0ep9

Rossman, J.R., Schlatter, B.E. (2019). Chapter 1 Basic Programming Concepts. In Recreation Programming (8th Edition, pp. 1-20). Sagamore-Ventre.

Neuman, W. L., & Robson, K. (2018). Chapter 8 Survey Research. In Basics of Social Research Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (4th Canadian Edition, pp. 161- 191). Pearson.

[sick-not-tired]

Very Much Wrong

Blog Post 8:

When asked to select a quiz to take online, the first website that came to mind was BuzzFeed. Anyone who was a teen in the 2010s has taken their fair share of BuzzFeed personality quizzes, as they seem to have a wide enough range of quizzes to pique absolutely anyone’s interest. Likely due to the ending of reality series Love is Blind, a trending quiz for this week was ‘Can we Guess Your Relationship Status Solely Based on Which Reality Dating Shows You’d Go On?’, so I decided to give it a go. The answer to the quiz title was, unfortunately, no.

The quiz was written by Syd Robinson, and comprised of 12 yes or no questions, asking if you would consider going on some of the most popular modern dating shows. According to my Buzzfeed, I should be “Very Much Taken”, however I am Very Much Not. Though rudimentary, the test had no spelling errors or interface malfunctions while I took it (which cannot be said for all quizzes of this nature). I wanted to learn more about how the test was designed and how it judged the questions, so I did a few experiments.

Experiment 1: I retook the quiz once selecting entirely yes, and another time selecting entirely no, just to see what other final results I could get. The first trial turned up the result “Single as a Pringle”, with the second receiving another “Very Much Taken”. I then began to wonder if those were the only two options. I was initially expecting some variation of “It’s Complicated” to be a possible result, so from there I decided to try another experiment.

Experiment 2: I decided to take the test with alternating answers (yes, no, yes, no, and so on) with six of each to try and get a stamp of “It’s Complicated”. This actually got me another result of “Single”. I then ruled out an “It’s Complicated” ruling, and began to wonder how these results were being quantified.

Were answers judged qualitatively, with shows like Too Hot to Handle or Bachelor in Paradise being given different characteristics than ones like Love is Blind or Married at First Sight, and these characteristics factored into the judgement of your singleness or lack thereof? Was it judged purely quantitatively, based on how many yes’ versus nos you were prepared to give? I hypothesized that it was the latter, with “Taken” having less yes’ than nos, so I embarked on my penultimate experiment.

Experiment 3: I tried alternating answers again, in the opposite order (no, yes, no, yes, and so on). I believed this would prove my hypothesis, as most shows are very drastically different from the one before, meaning if there was qualitative judgement, I should get a different result by selecting the opposite shows. The results seemed to prove my hypothesis, as I received another “Single” judgement. To fully test this hypothesis though, I wanted to try one last experiment.

Experiment 4: The last variation I tried had two parts: first, I needed to figure out how many answers would change your result (selecting yes on increasing amounts of questions at the beginning of the test until I receive a “Single” result), then I would select that many yes’ at the back end of the test, once again proving that it was not related to the quality of the shows. My theory could be easily disproved if it takes more than 6 answers to receive a “Single” result, as I got that result with 6 in the last experiment.

Results (1):

One Yes: Taken

Two Yes’: Taken

Three Yes’: Taken

Four Yes’: Taken

Five Yes’: Taken

Six Yes’: Single

 Results (2):

One Yes: Taken

Two Yes’: Taken

Three Yes’: Taken

Four Yes’: Taken

Five Yes’: Taken

Six Yes’: Single

The results of my last experiment reasonably show that this quiz is quantitatively judged, rather than qualitatively. What this means is, the quiz is improperly named. The name “Can we Guess You Relationship Status Solely Based on Which Reality Dating Shows You’d Go On?” suggests that picking certain shows over others would change the result, for instance someone who chooses only The Bachelor would get a different result than someone who selected only Too Hot to Handle. This is not the case. As such, this quiz SHOULD be called “Can we Guess Your Relationship Status Based on How Many Reality Dating Shows You’d Go On?”.

This quiz is, at the end of the day, supposed to be just for a laugh, however I feel that they missed an opportunity to not only make this quiz more accurate to the title by including some kind of qualitative analysis, but also to include a wider range of results that would apply to more people in today’s dating scene. The questions are clear, and your answers will always lead you to a result, but it is lacking in creativity and data usage from the actual questions.

Quiz Link:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/sydrobinson1/reality-dating-shows-relationship-status-quiz

[sick-not-tired]

Hi Rachel!

I really like how deeply you looked at your chosen research presentation and your decision to focus on the ethical side of challenges in research. I agree that the combination of the TCPS ethical difficulty with having children be your subjects, and the quantitative difficulty of an online longitudinal study would make this either a very interesting research question or an impossible one. I wonder how Dr. Rawana has intended the survey/questionnaire/research to be conducted long term? Will the benefits be judged only now and in the near future, or over a longer period of the child’s life? There are a lot of questions left here, due to the brief nature of the research videos, but I think you do a great job of outlining the major considerations with this research.

Another one of your points that I found interesting centered around the idea of “choosing and thinking about their decisions to make a conscious effort to use their strengths” being a beneficial side of this methodology. This raised a few questions for me. Could this emphasis on existing strengths force children into a fixed rather than growth mindset, which wouldn’t afford them as much personal growth? Could the increased praise of children’s strengths persuade them that they are more talented than they may actually be, setting them up for heartbreak later on? All of these are questions that I hope Dr. Rawana can answer in their research somewhere.

All in all I thought your chosen research concept was very interesting and I liked a lot of your takes on it.

#7 Research and Innovation Week

Prompt: Research doesn’t exist inside a bubble, and neither should you. For this assignment you are required to attend at least one event of the Research and Innovation Week Conference. In your blog post, you need to identify the topic being researched, outline the challenges and successes of the methodology, connect it directly to course content, and provide your opinion of the effectiveness of the research approach(es). Note that not all presentations will go into detail on this. 

Answer:

There were a few presentations that I was interested in attending from this week but I was not able to make the time frames they were presented in. (FYI: if you email events.research@lakeheadu.ca you may potentially be able to get a recording of a presentation) I attended one and asked for the recording so I could better understand the content. As Jill said, I found the presentations quite complex and had difficulty in understanding the world of academic research and jargon. I was also told that all the presentations would be available to watch as recordings by mid-week next week. 

I watched the presentation Strength-Based Strategies for Parents and Educators to Promote Mental Wellness and Resiliencies in Children and Youth by Dr. Ed Rawana. As a teacher candidate it was actually very insightful to listen to what Dr. Rawana had to say about the topic and his comparison of teaching and parenting. 

Identify the research topic: The research topic of this presentation was promoting the development of strengths and resilience in children and youth through parenting and educators. One of the key points he kept coming back to was the idea that adults are role models. As a teacher, parent, caregiver, they have to demonstrate the strength and skills they want these children to grow up to possess. He references it much like an apprenticeship program. Training and preparing children to have the strength based skill they need as an adult. 

Challenges and success of the methodology: Unfortunately this presentation did not go into much depth regarding how this research was done and mostly a research overview. However, I did find a lot of really interesting points of information that were made. I have come up with some challenges and success ideas although not directly discussed in the presentation. Some challenges I saw were in the measure of success, how do you measure if leading (teaching/parenting) with a strength based model is effective? I am having difficulty wrapping my brain around this. I think it is qualitative research as Dr. Rawana said something along the lines of: it is not about the amount of time you spend with the children but the quality of the time spent. I am not sure how you measure the factors that make someone resilient as this could come from a lot of different factors. My grade 9 geography teacher had us take an online survey to see how much grit we had but I do not think online tests and quizzes in these ways are accurate representations or good ways to conduct research. One of the successes of this methodology is it forces people to choose and think about their decisions to make a conscious effort to use their strengths and not just choose randomly. 

Connection to course content: A few areas that I thought connected to course content where in relation to an ethics approval as this research is focused on children and Dr. Rawana even mentioned you are not really supposed to do research on children so this would require a strong, thorough plan to be able to follow these children to see the effects of adults in their lives using strength based approaches to promote resilience.  Additionally, I thought of a literature review and review of sources and planning the research you are talking about. He mentioned a few times the work of Dr. Epstein and personally I have never looked at his research so it could very well be fundamental but the negative connotations around that person himself threw me off into listening to those connections. Lastly, I made a connection to sampling. I do not know the sample size or the demographic of people chosen but I think this would definitely affect the research as these kinds or role models look and appear differently in a low income neighborhood vs a high income neighborhood and geographic location, etc. 

Opinion on effectiveness of the model: I had a hard time pulling out the information to answer these questions from the presentation but I did gain some interesting parenting/teaching tips. Honestly after writing all of this I am not sure what the model of this research was but I think it was effective as there was information that I thought was strong and believable. It was a well done presentation. 

Rawana, E. (2022). Strength-Based Strategies for Parents and Educators to Promote Mental Wellness and Resiliencies in Children and Youth . Lakehead University Research and Innovation Week. Retrieved March 10, 2022, from https://lakeheadu.zoom.us/rec/share/CvEGT2sn108nYfd77T9WjXpsiB3elJmsueO_viqlNVxItts1eHTZY2-WRZZAddkJ.xzD3U6Z7gs_Zcm9a Passcode: 3E6+QYJ+.

[sick-not-tired]

Hi Laura, 

I like the direction you chose to go with your post. It seems like the implementation of forest schools is really important to you.

I see that you mentioned briefly in your last question explanation that you wanted to allow for more negative stories to be shared as well, and I think that is missing a bit from your fourth question. I think in your pursuit of making the question specific, you may have ended up on the side of leading the interviewee. The question implies that the parents agree that their son’s self-regulation skills have not only been impacted, but been impacted in a positive way. I can see how this response could flow from the previous question, and in that case, I think it would be a great question. Out on its own as a primary question it may lead the participants too much in the direction you are hoping to go.

One other area I had questions about was the question about behavior at home. As a neurodivergent person, I find that I act very differently at home compared to at school, unless the school environment is so extremely good that I carry home excitement or so incredibly bad that I carry home the burnout. Not knowing much about forest schools, I wonder if the focus on behavior at home might not get the kind of answers that will help legitimize or give perspective on the student experience.

All that said, I think your questions are well thought out and interesting. Great job!

Morgan

Interviewing in Recognition of the Pros and Cons of Forest Schools for Autism

This week’s blog post references the blog prompt from week #3 and subsequently my post “Embracing Autism in the Forest School Setting”. Please refer to this for more thorough background information.

Who Am I Interviewing:

I am interviewing a parent whose autistic child attends an inclusive forest school program with neurotypical children. This child attends the program with a respite worker. I have chosen to interview this parent because I believe that caregivers know their children best. As parents spend many hours with their own children, I believe that a parent of an autistic child would be best suited to speaking about changes in behaviours experienced by their child attending forest school.

Interview Questions:

Five interview questions I would use are:

1. Why did you decide to register Robby in forest school?

· This is an introducing question (Neuman, 2018, p. 265). We already understand that Robby is registered in forest school. We do not know the background reasoning for the caregiver’s choice to register Robby in the program. This question helps to us to understand underlying factors and themes that we as researchers may miss by starting with more specific questions.

2. How do you believe that forest school has impacted Robby?

· If the parent interviewee starts by speaking to the goals that she had in registering Robby for the program but does not go into depth as to whether these objectives for enrolment are being reached, we can dive deeper through the usage of a follow up questions (Neuman, 2018, p. 266).

3. Can you tell me more about how Robby’s behaviour has changed at home?

· This question dives deeper into something that the interviewee will likely cover in the follow up question or introducing question. It asks the interviewee to explain what she has noticed more thoroughly. This is referred to as a probing question (Neuman, 2018, p. 266).

4. What elements of forest school do you believe has helped Robby with his self-regulation skills?

· This question is used to help prompt the interviewee to provide more depth in prior questions about behavioural changes noticed at home. It helps the interviewer to gain a full picture of the link to behavioural changes and the elements of forest school having a positive (or negative) effect. This type of interviewing question is called a specifying interview question (Neuman, 2018, p. 267).

5. Would you encourage caregivers of other autistic children to consider forest school?

· This question is a direct question (Neuman, 2018, p. 267). It is used to ensure that if only positive experiences are being outlined, that any negative experiences also have an opportunity to be highlighted and vice versa. It also provides an opportunity for the interviewee to add anything last minute that the prior questions did not ask for.

Adventure On,

Laura Flett

References:

Neuman, W. L., & Robson, K. (2018). Chapter 12 Qualitative Interviewing. In Basics of Social Research Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (4th Canadian Edition, pp. 265–268), Pearson.

[sick-not-tired]

Expert Interview

As a part of group 5, my field of inquiry is the role and influences of identity, specifically in the field of outdoor recreation within Thunder Bay. In this field, someone I would value interviewing would be Dr. Mirella Stroink, a professor right here at Lakehead University. Dr. Stroink teaches courses in cultural psychology, community psychology, and social cognition, as well as conducting frequent research into human behaviour within linked social and ecological systems (Lakehead, 2021). More specifically, I want to talk to Dr. Stroink because she has published several studies and papers on identity and self-construal, as well as one study working with ORPT students in 2011 (Lakehead, 2021). Clearly, Stroink has extensive knowledge on human identity that would prove very useful; she also has an existing relationship with the ORPT program that might make it easier to connect with her to ask her some questions.

To start off the interview, I would ask the primary question: “I see that the environment is an aspect of much of your research, would you consider yourself a part of the Outdoor Recreational community in Thunder Bay?” From this question I would be hoping to ascertain if Dr. Stroink is a casual, habitual, or non-user of outdoor recreation opportunities in Thunder Bay. This information is helpful because, from Stroink’s staff profile, I already know her level of expertise on the topic of identity and social and cultural influence, but I cannot tell if she is an outside observer or an active participant in outdoor recreation (Lakehead, 2021). Figuring that out will help contextualize Dr. Stroink’s responses going forward.

Shifting more toward our podcast question, I would ask Dr. Stroink how representation in advertising affects a person’s feelings of belonging in a certain community or activity. This will tie in with our marketing and advertisement research and give more context into how the lack or abundance of similar people in a space, shapes how someone feels in that space. I would follow that up with a more subjective question of: “In your opinion, would this make it harder for people in marginalized groups to feel welcome in the Outdoor Recreation Community?”. This question allows Dr. Stroink to examine how well (or poorly) members of different communities are represented in specifically the outdoor space; it also allows her to apply that examination to our podcast concept of identity and belonging, and I hope she would provide insight into how that lack of perceived belonging could affect someone long term.

My final two questions would center around social media. We did social media research for this project, and I would like to see if her expectations matched the realities of the data we collected. I would ask: “What group of people do you think was the most highly represented in our research?”, then I would share our findings. I would ask how, if at all, the findings surprised her. Many questions could branch off of this primary one for me, because I was the member of our group doing the social media research. I found a few elements of the results so far were surprising to me, and I wondered if an expert in social psychology would also have the same initial biases that I did.

Question List:

1.       “Would you consider yourself a part of the Outdoor Recreational community in Thunder Bay?”

2.       “How does representation in advertising affect a person’s feelings of belonging in a certain community or activity?”

a)       “In your opinion, would this make it harder for people in marginalized groups to feel welcome in the Outdoor Recreation Community specifically?”

3.       “What group of people do you think was the most highly represented in our social media research?”

a)       “How, if at all, did the findings of our research surprise you?”

Reference List:

Neuman, W. L., & Robson, K. (2018). Basics of Social Research: Qualitative and quantitative approaches. Pearson Canada Inc.

University, L. (2021). Publications. Lakehead University. Retrieved March 4, 2022, from https://www.lakeheadu.ca/users/S/mstroink/publications

University, L. (2021). Stroink, Mirella. Lakehead University. Retrieved March 4, 2022, from https://www.lakeheadu.ca/users/S/mstroink

[sick-not-tired]

Hey Drew! Your post is really cool! I think your post does a really good job at analyzing the article while still enjoying the topic and getting folks excited about it. You have a lot of possible references listed and clearly you did a lot of your own research into the background of this article which is awesome! One thing I think you might want to look at more is why these sources may have been used, as well as the reasons why these sources would or would not be good, valid places to get information on this topic. I also wondered what your thoughts were on the factors readers should keep in mind when reading this article. I think that giving your final thoughts on the article after listing your sources would have really helped wrap up and contextualize the main idea of the article to potential readers. All in all though, I really loved your post! Great job!

Canada's Canoe Museum!

The article I chose to critically analyze for this week’s blog post is Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough prepares to move world’s largest canoe and kayak collection by Caley Bedore, a Global News reporter. (Link to the article is below in my references.)

Canadian Canoe Museum. Photo Credit: kawarthaNOW.com

This article focuses on Peterborough’s Canadian Canoe Museum and their preparations to move their 600+ piece collection to their new location. Currently the museum is located at 910 Monaghan Rd, and is moving to 2077 Ashburnham Drive (Bedore, 2022). They are moving buildings as they would like to showcase more of their collection, as right now the current building can only house and show less than 20% of their collection (Bedore). The new building will not only showcase more canoes, but also “…have a full outdoor campus, a full new suite of exhibitions, [and] a café” (Bedore). Some staff members are also interviewed and asked about the move and their work, such as how they are carefully cleaning each canoe and making sure it will be safe on its journey across the city to the new building. The museum is also “…working with many Indigenous, First Nations, Metis and Inuit communities to also support the exhibit development” (Bedore). The museum is currently open to the public on weekends from 10am-4pm, and plans to close their doors in September of this year to finish their prep work for the move (CCM, 2021). The new building is set to open in the summer of 2023 (Bedore).

Model Picture of the inside of the new building. Photo Credit: kawarthaNOW.com

The article does not directly list their sources, but some sources they might have used could included the following:

The Canadian Canoe Museum website, and their page on their new building

https://canoemuseum.ca/

https://canoemuseum.ca/new-museum/the-building/

Other Global News articles about the museum, that were linked on the page as ‘Read More’ options

https://globalnews.ca/news/7607438/canadian-canoe-museum-purchases-land-johnson-park/

https://globalnews.ca/news/4910464/canadian-canoe-museum-hires-director-to-develop-relations-collaborate-with-indigenous-communities/

https://globalnews.ca/video/7821252/canadian-canoe-museum-unveils-new-details-on-new-museum

Museum Staff Members

Carolyn Hyslop, Executive Director

Jeremy Ward, Curator

Dane Allendorf, Staff member cleaning the canoes

The information gathered from the museum staff interviews are primary sources of information, and the information from the other Global News articles are secondary sources.

References:

Bedore, C. (2022, February 17). Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough prepares to move world's largest canoe and kayak collection . Global News. Retrieved February 20, 2022, from https://globalnews.ca/news/8627255/canoe-museum-move-collection-new-location/

CCM. (2022, January 31). Home Page. Canadian Canoe Museum. Retrieved February 20, 2022, from https://canoemuseum.ca/

[sick-not-tired]

Beetles Beat the Bitter Cold

In an attempt to avoid articles about the anti-vaccine convoy, the Olympic doping scandal, or anything to do with Coronavirus, I have decided to do some research into the survival of the invasive Emerald Ash Borer Beetle (or Agrilus Plannipennis) species of Manitoba (Duell et al. 2022). In 2019, Manitoba as well as the midwestern United States were hit with a polar vortex averaging a temperature of -46 degrees Celsius (Liewicki, 2022). During this time, it was thought that the population of Emerald Ash Borer Beetles (previously thought to only survive to -28 degrees) would die (Liewicki, 2022). However, they managed to survive through a physiological response of dehydrating and concentrating their blood (Liewicki, 2022). Liewicki (2022) states that Brent Sinclair, a biology professor at Western University, believed that the glycerol accumulated in the blood during this hydration would work “the same as antifreeze in your vehicle’s radiator”. Jordan Bannerman, an entomology instructor at the University of Manitoba suggests that the survival of the beetles suggested that the ash tree may be wiped from Manitoba entirely, even though growth of the Emerald Ash Borer population had been stagnant (Liewicki, 2022).

This article sources include the opinions and work of Brent Sinclair (Biology professor), and Meghan Duell (post-doctorate researcher), which make up the research team that worked on this 2019 study in London, Ontario. This research was accepted to be published on January 29th, 2022 (linked below), following peer review and revision processes (Duell et al. 2022). This review and revision process served as an appropriate level of vetting for the article, and the implications for the future of Winnipeg and Manitoba ash trees makes it valuable research to be shared. The article also includes the thoughts of Jordan Bannerman (Entomology instructor), on the topic of what the research means for the arboreal landscape of Manitoba going forward (Liewicki, 2022). His opinions on the matter were not mentioned to be linked to any particular study or research project; however, he holds a master’s degree in Pest Management from Simon Fraser University, and teaches courses in Insect Ecology in the Province of interest in this study (2015). For those reasons, and because I think he contextualises the big picture repercussions of this study into layman’s terms that the audience will easier understand, I believe that CBC was justified in seeking out his expertise and including it in this article.

In reviewing this article, the reader should keep in mind that the scope of Duell and Colleagues’ study goes beyond what was mentioned in the article. They further test the beetles’ survival in a South Western Ontario winter as well as a simulated version of a Winnipeg winter, and found that the adaptability of the beetles was likely due to an unexpected phenotypic plasticity in terms of climate (Duell et al. 2022). They also went on to compare the genetic differences and similarities between the Agrilus Plannipennis species in different provinces with different weather patterns (Duell et al. 2022). The article makes it seem like the entire study was dedicated to the beetle’s survival in Winnipeg, but this is not the case. Another consideration when reviewing this article would be the fact that the reader can’t know how well briefed Bannerman was on the contents of the study. Though he seems to agree with the researchers on the future of the species, we cannot assume that he has read the paper, spoken to the researchers, or even been briefed on the full content of the study. This could lead to some bias in his agreement with the study findings.

Reference List

Duell, M. E., Gray, M. T., Roe, A. D., MacQuarrie, C. J. K., & Sinclair, B. J. (2022). Plasticity drives extreme cold tolerance of emerald ash borer (agrilus planipennis) during a polar vortex. Current Research in Insect Science, 2, 100031. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cris.2022.100031

Liewicki, N. (2022, February 18). Emerald ash borer survives Winnipeg's extreme winter weather | CBC News. CBCnews. Retrieved February 20, 2022, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/emerald-ash-borer-adapting-winnipeg-winter-1.6356146

N/A. (2015). Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences: Entomology Personnel Directory. University of Manitoba - Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences - Dept of Entomology - Personnel Directory. Retrieved February 20, 2022, from https://umanitoba.ca/faculties/afs/dept/entomology/personnel/Index.html

[sick-not-tired]

Wow! Ashley this sounds like a crazy experience! I’m so sorry about the stress you must be feeling right now and I really hope that your van can get fixed up in time for your Tuesday class. I also hope this is the last big repair you have to make for a long time. I know how scary and hard it is to have a vehicle break down, so I am glad you were able to get help and that you got out of there safe.

I loved the part where you talk about fixing up the van with your grandfather. Two summers ago, my dad and I converted an old tool shed behind our cottage into a little hangout spot/guest house using old building supplies and electrical equipment and it was one of the most fun and rewarding projects we had ever done together. Your post really reminded me of that, so thank you!

I really hope that everything works out for you in this coming week. Whether that means you getting the van running again right away or having a good time sleeping over at your friend’s house, I hope you find some time to relax and get everything worked out in the end. Best of luck and great post!

Blog Prompt 4 (OUTD 2511): What Are You Thinking About?

This past week has been a little rough and there has been a lot on my mind. There is so much going on in my mind that I sat here for an hour just trying to think of what specific thing I could share. I have a lot going on with school, my family, and my personal life, but the main thing that has bothered me the most is the fact that I’ve been having issues with my vehicle.

I bought my van last February with the plan of converting it into a camper and live in it during school. My grandpa and I worked very hard on it and we built a bed in it, a counter, put a fridge in it, added a vent, added solar panels, and did electrical work. Shortly after that I began having issues. I had to have new brakes put in and a new steering box put in. During the summer and fall everything was great, but then winter came around and with the snow came a flurry of problems. A loud screaming noise started coming from my van whenever I revved up and I brought my van to a mechanic, but they didn’t know what it was. After hours of searching, the mechanic determined that I needed my exhaust gasket fixed.

Now to the most recent issue. I wanted to drive home to Schreiber for the weekend, but as I was a few minutes outside of Thunder Bay, my van began to shake and lose acceleration. I pulled over and checked everything and thought I would see what would happen if I drove a little further, but I couldn’t get my speed over 5 kilometers per hour. I had to call a tow truck for them to bring my van to my mechanic in Schreiber.

I got a ride home and had my van checked. My catalytic converter is plugged up and I need to get it disassembled and cleaned. I'm hoping I can get my van into the shop tomorrow because I have an in person class on Tuesday. Also, if I can’t have my van fixed in time to go back to Thunder Bay, I will temporarily be homeless since it’s what I'm currently living in . That’s okay though, because my friend will likely let me sleep on their couch for a little while.

This is a portion of the craziness going on in my life, and I'm grateful to be able to share it with all of you. This really helps me to get a little off of my mind. Hopefully all will be well soon! Thank you!

[sick-not-tired]

Stop “Doing What You Love”

I have spent the past 5 days burnt out, depressed, anxious, and more than anything completely exhausted. Quite honestly, I considered not doing a blog post at all this week, because I didn’t know until today if I could physically make myself do it. However, it just so happens that this week we have also been given free choice as to what we blog about. In response, I would like to talk about burnout, specifically as it relates to things we love and care about.

According to Psychology Today, burn out is “a state of emotional, mental, and often physical exhaustion brought on by prolonged or repeated stress”. It is frequently due to school or work, and many often associate it with repeated work on something that they do not enjoy. However, burn out is not isolated to things you do not enjoy. Burn out can happen in parenting, relationships, social interaction, and yes, even passions and hobbies. This means that “Love your work and you’ll never work a day in your life” or at least “you will never stress about work a day in your life” is not only blatantly untrue, it is harmful.

In todays capitalist society, barring a whopping inheritance or some other form of generational wealth, you work, or you die. Not to mention that in most cases, you work at least 40 hours a week. This inevitability, and the wider array of jobs in the world today, mean that in order to lighten the load of the thought of working all day, nearly every day, for the rest of their lives, many have been encouraged to pursue passions and make money doing something they love. However, people who do follow passions are far more likely to burn out (Fernet et al. 2014).

Passions require that a person have a strong inclination toward something, and a strong drive to do it. Passions, when controlled by the individual, are healthy; when passions begin to control the individual however, they become toxic (Fernet et al. 2014). When your performance in your passion becomes the variable that controls the food on your plate and the roof over your head, it becomes stressful both financially and emotionally. You have to make enough money to live, and you want to feel that same joy and sense of accomplishment you always used to. Form here the passion becomes obsessive (Fernet et al. 2014). When one is obsessively passionate about something, they cannot stop themselves from investing time and energy into it, even if it is ill-advised to do so(Fernet et al. 2014). We can see this in cases like small business owners who started out because they wanted to do something they loved and “make their own hours”, yet most of them work in store all day, do administrative work at home all evening, and think about work all night. When you meld life and work, the lines blur until neither solidly exists anymore.

I believe that the ORPT program sees more of these “follow your dream”ers than almost any other. We all love the outdoors, or love working with kids, or desperately want to help save the planet. We are all here because we want to feel like our job will be more meaningful and less boring than others. I do think that that is an incredible thing, however I want to implore you all, take care of yourself first. Establish boundaries. No matter how much you love the work you are doing or the organization you are doing it for, it is not worth your sanity, your self respect, or your time off.

Reference List:

Fernet, C., Lavigne, G. L., Vallerand, R. J., & Austin, S. (2014). Fired up with passion: Investigating how job autonomy and passion predict burnout at career start in teachers. Work & Stress, 28(3), 270–288. https://doi.org/10.1080/02678373.2014.935524

Unnamed. (n.d.). Burnout | Psychology Today. Psychology Today. Retrieved February 7, 2022, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/burnout

[sick-not-tired]

Women’s Outdoor Apparel: In Historical Context

If I had the opportunity to conduct a research project with unlimited funds, I would do it on the history of women’s outdoor gear. Historical Fashion has always fascinated me, and in recent years my attention has been drawn to the severe gaps that remain in outdoor gear and apparel aimed toward women. For instance, there is an ongoing joke between my friends and I (that has proved true many a time) that all financially accessible women’s outdoor apparel companies only make outdoor wear in the colours black, fuchsia, or teal. Historically, women’s active and outdoors wear has always been a few steps behind that of men.

For example, in 1943 most male sports players were fighting overseas in World War 2, and Philip Wrigley formed the All-American Girls Professional Baseball team, on which the players wore a one-piece skirted uniform as opposed to pants. Women were meant to “look like ladies, but play like gentlemen” (Porter, 2020). From my 11 years playing Softball, I can tell you that sliding into home with anything less than full length pants and sliding pads will leave you with some very unladylike scars. 

Dorothy “Dottie” Kamenshek, First Basemen for the Rockford Peaches jumping to catch a ball in her uniform, from the National Baseball Hall of Fame, from:  https://www.enidnews.com/news/league-of-their-own-women-baseball-players-together-again/article_aa96deac-d474-5e3e-8fa6-9443f239aa89.html

In another example, the 19th century and industrial revolution led to much more expendable income in families and led to more women joining their husbands in outdoor pursuits like yachting and mountain climbing. MacIntosh rubberized-cotton raincoats were patented in 1823 and became quite popular in 1830 following their roll-out to military men, but the popularization of waterproof outerwear for women and subsequent design of fashionable styles would not come until the 1880s and 1890s (Shepard, 2012).

If I had unlimited resources, I would do a deep dive into the history of women’s outdoor wear from woolen shawls and tunics to Helly Hansen Jackets, complete with trips to fashion museums to view extant garments, conversations with historians and modern garment makers, and a look into why so many gaps between men’s and women’s outdoor wear exists.

Ethically, this project would ideally not be a large undertaking. It would focus mainly on compiling existent research and speaking with experts only on the basis of their past research and findings, so factors like engagement with vulnerable persons, power imbalances, and most risk factors would likely be easier to avoid. However, there is always economic and social risks to these experts should they speak ill of their institutions or design companies, so this would need to be addressed. Of course, free and informed consent is also a factor in these interviews, as is respecting participant privacy.

This research would be proposed as a way to help outdoor gear and apparel companies better connect to the wants and needs of outdoorswomen, and as a way to bridge the gap between fashion design and user practicality. It would help gear companies and women by furthering the conversation around past and current inequities between men’s and women’s ability to access the outdoors. It would help expedition leaders and companies in better addressing the gear needs of women who enter their programs.

Reference List:

Porter, M. (2011, March 27). When women ruled baseball: The AAGPBL. HowTheyPlay. Retrieved January 29, 2022, from https://howtheyplay.com/team-sports/When-Girls-Ruled-Baseball

Shephard, A. J. (2012). Waterproof dress : An exploration of development and design from 1880 through 1895. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 30(3). https://doi.org/10.32469/10355/6182

[sick-not-tired]

Hi Laura, this is a really enlightening post. I really enjoy how you addressed the pros and cons for each method (qualitative vs. quantitative) and stated the necessity for further deliberation on that before research could begin. I also agree that outdoor education is a criminally underexplored avenue in the betterment of education for those with cognitive and social disabilities. Your emphasis on this kind of learning playing to strengths rather than “band-aiding” perceived setbacks was really eye opening to me. One thing I would be interested to hear your take on, is the possibility of sensory issues resulting from a shift outdoors. Especially in autistic children that have become used to a traditional classroom setting, the shift to being outdoors could cause dysregulation or perhaps a transitory period of getting used to the new surroundings and accompanying stimulus. I think further research into the pros and cons of shifting children to nature-based classroom settings would be a very interesting addition to your dream research project. Lastly, I enjoyed your use of quotations that mean a lot to you in this post. Especially the Margaret McMillan post was very topical to your desired message. I really liked your post and I hope you one day get to take on this research project, as I think it is only going to become more prevalent in the coming years.

Embracing Autism in the Forest School Setting

Topic of Inquiry

     Ensuring the success of students with disabilities in the mainstream classroom is important to me. I have noticed that the hands-on and therapeutic features of outdoor settings provide many benefits to those with developmental and cognitive disabilities. As someone that believes that “the greatest classrooms and richest cupboards are those that are roofed only by the sky (McMillian)”, it is my goal to use the forest school environment to help students that struggle in the regular classroom setting.

     As the usage of forest schools for autistic individuals is under-utilized, research in this area would provide opportunities to advance the supports for students living with Autism. Therefore, if I had the opportunity to complete a research study as a PhD candidate, I would want to focus on the benefits of the usage of forest schools for Autistic youth. This topic does require further narrowing and specification.

Photo Description: This is my absolute favourite quote. It highlights the importance of using the outdoors as a classroom for learning.

Qualitative or Quantitative?

           I think it would be hard to decide as to whether my research would be a better fit for qualitative or quantitative methods.

     Qualitative methods would allow me to focus on individual testimonies to highlight successes of forest school programs for Autistics. Qualitative research would also allow me to shine a light on problems and solutions that could then be implemented by educators to support their own work.

   One limit of qualitative methods would be the ability to look for depth of impact of forest school programs due to the limited amount of case studies that could be utilized for the study. This is important because the quantitative method of statistics may be vital in gaining funding for supporting forest school programs for Autistic youth.

      In recognizing the limitations of qualitative and quantitative methods in this study, I would want to examine the pros and cons of different research frameworks more deeply with a focus on choosing a research framework that reflects the importance of equitable opportunities for Autistic individuals.

Why Autism?

           Autism has become known as a disability that faces chronic unemployment and a lack of educational institutional successes. Features such as social and communication deficits, sensory integration problems, and chronic anxiety are common features of autism. Forest school practices provide a safe outlet to practice weak skills that are often not associated as well with traditional classroom learning. As forest schools are outdoors, opportunities are provided for students to engage their body in sensory based needs while considering that loud and bright indoor spaces can often be triggers for dysregulation. Flexibility in forest school programming also allows for differentiated learning. It can be easily seen that there are many benefits of forest school teaching pedagogy that are not otherwise available in the traditional classroom setting. The increasing prevalence of autism in the public school system creates a need for programs that provide supports to students that enable them to learn in ways that work for them.

     Meaningful programs that embrace autism’s opportunities versus creating interventions for challenges are rare. There are many examples out there of autistics benefiting from forest school practices because of the teaching methodologies used. By showcasing these stories and their successes, I would be able to create a world in which there is less stigma about autism and instead initiate a celebration of the successes of programs that focus on individuality.

    Research can be used to create a better world. My hope in researching this would be to show that autistic individuals need to have access to meaningful schooling opportunities that work for them. Forest school is one area where more research is needed to be able to advocate for its approach to educating autistics. Research provides the opportunity to show where change is needed. This is especially pertinent to finding solutions to educating students with disabilities – autism or otherwise.

Photo Description: Austin Riley is one of my heroes. He is a young adult race car driver from Ontario that is raising awareness about what it means to live with autism “one step at a time”.

References: 

Instagram. (n.d.). Margaret McMillian Photo. Forest School Education. photograph. Retrieved January 26, 2022, from https://www.instagram.com/p/BMoHtJNBsah/.

Riley, A. (2020, October 26). Racing with Autism Facebook Page. Retrieved January 27, 2022, from https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=196808425226613&set=a.196808408559948

[sick-not-tired]

I really loved your objectivity and tone in your post. I share your opinion that this documentary was exploitative, but I enjoyed that we had different paths of reasoning that led us there. I completely agree with your point that the documentary should have focused more on her way of life. I was hoping that, with this video, I would get to hear her explain the specific tasks she takes on to maintain her household and was disappointed at the lack of real information on her daily life. 

I also agree with the idea that her faith was not handled properly. Throughout the video, we watch her pray with no guidance on what she is doing or why, and I couldn’t put my finger on why it was making me uncomfortable. Reading your post made me realize that the lake of understanding made it feel more like an invasion that an educational opportunity. 

I also like how you were able to articulate why the researcher’s lack of prior knowledge would be harmful, as this is an idea that I tried to include in my response, but I was not able to find the right way to incorporate it. I would have loved to hear during that paragraph what specific kind of differences you thought would come from having a more knowledgeable and experienced research group. 

Lastly, I want to say I’m glad you brought up language barriers, as this was not something I had considered during my response. I wish the VICE video had explained more about the process of gaining consent from Agafia, because I think that so many of these ethical questions would have been answered. I really respect your take on this documentary.

02. Surviving in Siberia - A Research Review

Surviving in the Siberian Wilderness for 70 Years is a case study that was done by Vice in 2013 and sponsored by the North Face. The youtube documentary follows 70-year-old Agafia Lykov, the final surviving member of the Lykov family. The family of Old Believers fled into the remote taiga of Siberia in 1936 to escape violence and persecution at the hands of Stalin. Agafia was born in the mountains in 1944, where she lives to this day, living off the land, self-sufficient, and pleased with her life in the remote taiga near the Erinat river, 160km from the nearest city (Vice, 2013). 

The case study was done by Americans from Vice in collaboration with Vice Russia. The study would be considered a microsocial theory since it studies a concrete, small-scale, and narrow level of reality - the study focuses on an individual (Agafia), and her actions. 

Based on the description of qualitative research as discussed in class, I would argue that the case study falls under the category of qualitative research. Qualitative research is descriptive and involves field work. Qualitative researchers are interested in meaning and are the primary instrument for data collection and analysis.

The filmmakers do carry quite an extensive invisible backpack that isn’t fully addressed in the film. Many of the aspects however, can be inferred from the content and form of the film. The film is sponsored by the North Face, meaning the crew obviously has access to funds and to high quality expedition gear. The production quality of the film implies a full camera crew with high quality cameras. It is noted at the beginning of the film that although there is a language barrier, they have Gleb along as not only a host, but a translator (Vice, 2013).  

There are several key ethics considerations that should have been taken into account with the production of this film. The first to address is how limited the knowledge of the researchers was - they spent very little time in Russia, and very little time in the remote taiga. I believe this brings into question the level of understanding that the researchers had when it comes to the way of life and culture of the region. Agafia’s lifestyle is very obviously different from the cultural norm, but when they described her life, they seemed to have gleaned little from their time with her, citing the experience as “very interesting and sometimes it was depressing and sometimes it was fun. In any case we should never forget this experience” (Vice, 2013). The researchers don’t seem to have a full appreciation of Agafia’s religion, culture, and relationship with the land. She says herself that she has no desire to live in the city (Vice, 2013). 

The next point to bring up is free and informed consent. One of the barriers to free and informed consent is language - there is a language barrier present between the researchers and Agafia. They have a translator, but Agafia’s isolated lifestyle calls into question whether she truly understands the scope of the research and the documentary. She has only been into the city five times (Vice, 2013), which makes me wonder whether she understands that the information she discloses will be available globally. 

The documentary to me feels somewhat exploitative - the researchers came for a brief period of time, asked rather prying questions, shot a documentary and left. I have to wonder whether Agafia benefitted from taking part in this research in any way, other than the animals she received.

If I was given the same opportunity to research and communicate my findings, I believe I would approach the research assignment with a more positive lens, rather than focusing on the more negative and traumatic parts of Agafia’s life. As a student researcher who is enamored with the idea of life in the far north, I would want to spend far longer staying with Agafia and learning her way of life. I would ask more questions showcasing aspects of her life such as her tools, medicine, garden, spirituality, and ways of being. She is one of the remaining Old Believers, so if her religion is included in the film, I think it should be properly explained and honoured. Before the video was released, I would make sure that Agafia had the opportunity to view it and decide whether it was a candid representation of herself. I would also collaborate with her to create a project that would help her, should she so desire external support. (ex. Resupply of essential tools, livestock, etc.)

Reference

Vice. (2013). Surviving in the Siberian Wilderness for 70 Years (Full Length) [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt2AYafET68

[sick-not-tired]

The Ethics of Studying Trauma

*An Ethics-Based Response to “Surviving in the Siberian Wilderness for 70 Years” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt2AYafET68

During the video, “Surviving in the Siberian Wilderness for 70 Years” (Linked Above), a small team of researchers helicoptered into the Siberian Taiga, in order to learn more about Agafia, a woman who has lived there since her family fled religious persecution in 1936. Agafia’s family belonged to The Old Believers, a ritualist group similar to the Russian Orthodox Church. The Old Believers were cast out of said Church after the adoption of Orthodox apostate Nikon’s sweeping reforms of traditional religious practices in the 17th century (Guzeva, 2021). This persecution was given new life by Soviet Leader Joseph Stalin in the 1930’s, and after Agafia’s uncle was killed, her father moved the family into the Sayan mountains (Normanton, 2009). Agafia’s family made contact with the outside world again in the 1970’s, when a group of geological researchers stumbled upon the family and allegedly gave the three eldest siblings pneumonia that would eventually lead to their death. Agafia’s father died in 1988, and since then Agafia has lived alone, save for one of the Geologists, Yerofei, who returned to live in a cabin nearby in 1997.

The researchers for VICE had the objective to qualitatively observe Agafia and interview her about her life in isolation. Researchers asked questions about her faith, her family, and her daily routine. Her responses consist of stories of bear encounters, the work it takes to maintain a household in these conditions, and the toll this life is taking on Agafia in her old age. Researchers also learn that Agafia does not welcome the company of her sole neighbour, Yerofei. Agafia says she needs a “kind, supportive man” to come help her (VICE, 19:04), and while Yerofei alludes to there being a romantic or even sexual relationship between Agafia and himself, stating that he is “a man, and she is a woman,” (VICE, 23:45), Agafia tells a different story. She says that Yerofei has tried to push himself on her twice, once even while she was ill. She says he has gone so far as to threaten to have her imprisoned for the “sinful act” they committed, should she not agree to live with him going forward.

In the edited documentary, researchers spent very little time on the implied assault and made no further comment on it after the interview clips, which strikes me as problematic. Coercion, especially when entangled with religious guilt, can lead to more self-blame than other forms of assault, and this video handles the topic with nonchalance that could be harmful to survivors of similar situations. The team involved in research was exclusively male, and as far as I could tell, exclusively white. This leads me to believe that the “glossing over” of this topic could be due to a lesser understanding of the trauma and guilt involved, and the ways those feelings can be triggered. Without going into detail, my invisible backpack makes me more cognizant in this area. The conversation itself could still have been included, because Agafia’s conversation around it could be validating to a lot of people, but a comment from interviewers stating the severity of what happened, separating it from the more sensationalized parts of the documentary would have gone a long way.

I don’t think this video should have been made. At the very least, I believe it should have been done in the summer months when researchers could have left, had Agafia withdrawn consent. Because their trip took place in the winter, researchers were stranded until the helicopter returned, no matter what Agafia may have wanted. Agafia stated in the video that she does not feel that she can leave her home, so for researchers to come in when they, too, are unable to leave, is a violation of her right to ongoing consent. Next, Agafia has been studied and interviewed numerous times; enough times for research fatigue to occur. Her family left society to get away from other people, and even if Agafia herself didn’t share that desire, she has been interviewed and observed more than many who do exist in modern society could bare. It can also be questioned whether Agafia’s consent to this project was freely given. Researchers brought out a goat and chicken for her, at her request. If Agafia desperately needed those animals, could she have turned down the interview at all? Was she made aware that the gifts would not be taken away should she withdraw her consent? We cannot know. 

Agafia is the last of her family, unsure how much longer she can go on living the only way she knows how. In my eyes, the benefits of doing more research into Agafia’s life don’t outweigh the potential ethical drawbacks of bringing up potentially traumatic memories over and over again.

Reference List:

Guzeva, A. (2021, September 28). How Russia got its own 'Protestants', the Old Believers. Russia Beyond. Retrieved January 20, 2022, from https://www.rbth.com/history/334237-russian-protestants-old-believers

Normanton, T. (2009, December 9). Death of the Soviet Union: Mountain-dwelling old believer reflects on the USSR that passed her by. bne IntelliNews. Retrieved January 22, 2022, from https://intellinews.com/death-of-the-soviet-union-mountain-dwelling-old-believer-reflects-on-the-ussr-that-passed-her-by-229243/

VICE. (2013, April 9). Surviving in the siberian wilderness for 70 years (full length). YouTube. Retrieved January 20, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt2AYafET68