Domain Analysis
Finally!!!! This is a method I like and I feel like really works for my research. That's probably not a big surprise to most people reading this blog but it's fun to be here at last.
Domain Analysis
For my domain, I used the student blogs. I looked through most of the blogs and did a domain analysis, identifying a cover term, included terms and thinking about semantic relationships. Here's what I came up with:
Cover term: blog
I figured this is the best term for the domain. There's not much else that can describe it and it represents the basic unit.
Included terms: comments, postings, diaries, links, previous posts, archives, pictures, video files, audio files, permalinks, profiles.
I ended up just identifying all the different elements of the blogs and breaking them down into the smallest possible unit. While I was aware of all these different things that go into a blog, it was interesting to think of them individually, how important and rich they are on their own and how powerful and flexible each on is. Each could be looked at, pulled apart and researched on its own. There's so much in this domain to investigate.
semantic relationship worksheet:
I tried this method with the strict inclusion relationship using is a kind of for each of them. I came up with:
comment, posting, audio file, video file, profile are all kinds of communication.
and
diaries, links, previous posts, archives, permalinks are all kinds of saving or recording.
Affordance and Limitations
One great aspect of this type of method is that it really makes me break down the observations into small bits so I can move those bits around and find the patterns. For instance, I may eventually have come to recognize that profiles and comments are similar in some way but by looking at each individual bit and how it relates to other bits, the relationship between profile and comment just jumped right out.
As far as limitations go, one thing that really struck me in the Spradley piece was when he said that these steps should not become a substitute for your own intuition and ingenuity. That's a good reminder that this is just another tool in my toolbox of research methods and I should look to all my tools as I go through this process.
Domain Analysis
For my domain, I used the student blogs. I looked through most of the blogs and did a domain analysis, identifying a cover term, included terms and thinking about semantic relationships. Here's what I came up with:
Cover term: blog
I figured this is the best term for the domain. There's not much else that can describe it and it represents the basic unit.
Included terms: comments, postings, diaries, links, previous posts, archives, pictures, video files, audio files, permalinks, profiles.
I ended up just identifying all the different elements of the blogs and breaking them down into the smallest possible unit. While I was aware of all these different things that go into a blog, it was interesting to think of them individually, how important and rich they are on their own and how powerful and flexible each on is. Each could be looked at, pulled apart and researched on its own. There's so much in this domain to investigate.
semantic relationship worksheet:
I tried this method with the strict inclusion relationship using
comment, posting, audio file, video file, profile are all kinds of communication.
and
diaries, links, previous posts, archives, permalinks are all kinds of saving or recording.
Affordance and Limitations
One great aspect of this type of method is that it really makes me break down the observations into small bits so I can move those bits around and find the patterns. For instance, I may eventually have come to recognize that profiles and comments are similar in some way but by looking at each individual bit and how it relates to other bits, the relationship between profile and comment just jumped right out.
As far as limitations go, one thing that really struck me in the Spradley piece was when he said that these steps should not become a substitute for your own intuition and ingenuity. That's a good reminder that this is just another tool in my toolbox of research methods and I should look to all my tools as I go through this process.
