Past Seminars

Research using digital stories

Conducted by Liz Dimitriadis & Mark Lyall of the LDC group on Monday 14th July 2008, at RMIT, Melbourne.

The seminar examined the use of digital stories to collect and convey data; and the tensions between the roles of the digital story teller and the researcher. Using examples of recent work Liz and Mark presented their experiences and facilitated discussion about relevant research theory and emerging technologies.

Liz has been consulting to government departments and public service organisations for 14 years and Mark is completing a PhD in media studies at Latrobe University. Liz’s and Mark’s combined experiences have enabled them to explore the use of digital stories in research contexts.

Narrative Inquiry
Sojourn: A Fragment in Time in Image and Text

This seminar was held on Tuesday March 13th 2007 at Swinburne University, Melbourne and conduvted by  Dr Adele Flood of Swinburne University. Adele is an experienced educator and researcher and has published widely on aspects of arts learning, narrative and reflective practice. She is also a practicing artist. This presentation explored ways of recording time and place through the journaling in both visual and written texts of one particular fragment in the author's life. Through this, Adele explored the theory and practice of narrative inquiry.

'The journeys that we undertake over this flat earth, these fragments of time, provide the substance from which great stories are made'.

Presenting Qualitative Research to Mixed Audiences

This seminar was held on 22nd November 2006 at ACER, Australian Council for Educational Research, Camberwell, and was presented by Dr Jan Brace Govan, Monash University.

It was about reaching out and giving qualitatively designed research a fair hearing from a range of audiences.  Talking amongst ourselves is valuable and reinforcing but, we often need to communicate our ideas and our findings to audiences that are either, less enthused about qualitative methods or, have a relatively narrow view of qualitative research. Jan has worked in a discipline with a preference for 'science' for the last seven years.  In this interactive seminar Jan shared that experience and present some approaches to communicating qualitative research.

Analysing Qualitative Data

This seminar was held on Tuesday 22nd August at RMIT Business, Melbourne.

Assoc. Professor Carlene Boucher and Anne Smyth, RMIT University

Carlene and Anne drew on their own experience of wrestling with qualitative data and that of the students they have worked with to explore when and how to use the major choices reflected in the title. They discussed the issues involved in deciding the most appropriate approach, offering what they have learnt from using these approaches.

Meet NVivo 7, the latest qualitative software

This seminar was held on Wednesday 24th May at the Australian Council for Education Research.

Lyn Richards, QSR's founder.

Lyn demonstrated and discussed the recently launched NVivo 7, which she has now taught in 20 events in three countries. The new interface and functions were introduced by setting up a real project.


Researchers Who Have 'Turned':
Shifting Research Frameworks

This seminar was held on Wednesday 26th April at Swinburne University.

Graham O'Neill and Anne Smyth

A conversation between a PhD candidate (Graham O'Neill) and one of his supervisors (Anee Smyth) , exploring the productive struggle involved in moving from a traditional positivist approach to research to a very different way ' not just qualitative but grounded theory too!

Secrets, Lies or Data
The Research Interview Revisited

This seminar was held on 14th March 2006 at the Australian Council for Educational Research in Camberwell, Melbourne.

In this seminar, Dr Jo Reidy from Australian Catholic University introduces and then critiques several important perspectives on research interviewing. She uses transcripts from the data collected for her own book, Learning to work: Students' experiences during work placements, to take up the many issues raised when researchers attempt to gather trustworthy data during face-to-face interactions.