Appreciation for some seriously good research!
I have been seriously impressed recently with a group of students who are really giving their all in their work. I am of course talking about a group of students who are pursuing independent studies and honors theses with me. Chris Adams, Ryan Kearns, Nick Lin, DanielLa Ribinski, and Akira Simizu. All of them undergraduate students with research outputs that would put to shame most pre-doctoral candidates. All of them enduring perceptions research of a qualitative nature. All too often people see qualitative work as a fluffy way out of statistical analysis that is too readily seen as 'real' research claiming to speak for the masses. As one influential Professor, Alex Kouzmin (a White Russian who has published no less than 200 articles in scholarly journals) once said to me during my own studies - 'why do you persist with the childish games of numbers?'. It had a profound affect on me. Unfortunately that effect left over 6000 pages of text based community conversation to be analyzed before I was awarded the PhD, by that's life. Very much enjoying seeing the results of your hard work guys and looking forward to presenting these findings with you so the rest of the world can see them.
Sincerely. One of the joys of the job outside of being in the classroom.
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Thanks for the kind words, Neil. I’m looking forward to presenting my research (not to mention having it finished). I’m glad you mentioned your Russian mentor’s quote here. Very profound. I too have questioned the legitimacy and “fluffiness” of the purely qualitative analysis, and this helps allay some of those concerns.
This research is producing some great findings (it should, as it’s approaching almost 300 hours). I’m looking forward to presenting them on the 19th at the COB.