the holy crap moment

I am in awe. It doesn't seem approriate somehow to be in awe of one's own research and process, but I am in awe.

Not so much about my research findings but more so about the process. I read all of the research articles for my research and I've read them all at least 3 or 4 times by now, if not more often. I thought I had a good grip on how authors' were defining competency but...I didn't. The difference between reading and coming to some kind of a decision about what they say is a very different elephant than repeatedly analysing what the authors' say and don't say, along with reflecting over how they construct these definitions and how I as a researcher approach all of the above.

The holy crap moment came when I realized the injustice I do the LIS field and my workplace when I read LIS literature and formulate opinions, approaches, etc. for implementation without truly settling in to evaluate and assess that literature. Yeah, ok sometimes we're too busy, it isn't
that critical and issue, etc. which are all good reasons for a more facile approach.

I have touted the importance of research and giving back to the LIS field, but now I truly understand why research is important to the field. I believe it is safe to say that those who don't do research will never be giving back to the profession in the same qualitative way those who do research will, for those who do research and publish in the field are constructing the field at a more fundamental and rigorous level than those who just practice.

one step further down the coding path

I was reading a bit more on coding. They spoke of reaching a saturation point, where the coding just seems to fall together with items slotting into place. I think I'm almost there for categories/coding.

I'm coding for the presence/absence of words in the text of the "definition" as identified by the authors', and within the discussion of competency in the article, in order to get an "explicitly identified" definition. The two parts shall be compared as it is beginning to look like the discussion in the text is more reflective of the theory and the authors' definitions reflecting the practice of the concept of competency.

Then I'm going back through to code both parts for the content/meaning, such that if the specific words weren't used but the intent is there, e.g. they speak of "abilities" associated with competency without calling them "abilities" through the use of words such as proactive, etc., then I will code for that meaning also. This I may call an "attributed" or "implicit" definition. Then these two will be compared etc. to see if the distinctions continue to exist.

Once the info in mentioned in the previous two paragraphs is merged, an overall concept of competency per article may emerge, allowing one to say whether there is a common concept of competency and/or common ways these definitions are phrased within the literature.

The information/data has already been broken down into the different approaches: role-based versus aspect-based approaches to competency and this will be thrown into the pot for analysis.

But something is niggling at me, demanding my attention. I haven't been able to define it as yet but I suspect it is a new category/node/coding whispering my name. It may be that how the authors' express their definitions needs to be coded for: a resulting list of competencies, embedded within a training framework, etc. Once this is identified and coded for then all sorts of analysis can take place! I can't wait.

yanking my hair out coding research, but initial results...

I was thinking about the process of research - again - big surprise. I've been coding for content in my research articles, trying to find out how we address competency. I realized that as long as the process can be duplicated, it doesn't matter how you arrived at the process (clean or dirty).

It has been difficult to code as I've been "courting" the data, trying to get it to reveal itself. I've been trying NOT to impose my preconceived ideas, too late in some cases, and where I have imposed I've tried to be very clear that I did impose and the reasons for imposing. My first crack at it didn't work, I didn't go granular enough. On the second/third shot at it the data shaped itself, very nicely, into CATEGORIES of, or approaches to definitions. But what has been very interesting in reveal, is that there are the definitions created by the authors and there is their text about the definitions, in some cases two different animals. In order to better understand both what they were thinking (text) and saying (definitions) with respect to competency as a concept (versus their resulting definitions), it became necessary to code for the presence of a preconceived, overarching or underlying definition of "competency" using their TERMINOLOGY (the presence or absence of these words).

This is an attempt to answer such questions as: How does the shaping of, and their resulting definition relate to the shape of the preconceived definition? Does use of this underlying terminology reflect a commonality of approach?

And this doesn't even get us to a third layer, that of MEANING. What does it all mean: how they've approached competency, how they have/have not expressed it, their multiple uses of a single word such as "skills" to reflect an element that is a subset of competency in some articles, treated as a synonym for competency in others and of equivalent importance with competency in yet more articles? Further, are there geographic differences (behavioural versus functional definitions) and how does it all fit within the overall framework for discussions of competency (as proposed by a business author)? etc. More work ahead. ick.

how do we evaluate ourselves: a process

I've been reviewing the CILIP forms for certification, chartership and fellowship. Very interesting approach that might be modified for our internal renewal, promotion and permanence process. I was rather hoping for a single form and process but they have multiple forms. For professional development alone there is a form to record your plan, a log to record your activities, and a form for you to evaluate your professional development (self-assessment, reflective aspect). The plan and the log are submitted as part of one's assessment when applying for certification, etc.

This process doesn't seem to address service to the community (city, university) but somewhat addresses service to the profession and it doesn't reflect research activities. The assessment form used by CILIP for Fellowship includes "evidence of substantial achievement in professional practice...significant contribution to all or part of the profession." This implies, in my opinion, the fellowship assessment is more equivalent to what is required here internally at this library. Thus the certification and chartership may be used to inform, but not direct, whatever process we might decide to derive from the fellowship documentation. This information or even the other processes may perhaps be more appropriate for "newbie" librarians, as opposed to those of us who have been operating for a while in the LIS field.

It still doesn't address research and the need(?) for a research plan.

If we can say/agree our activities here are made up of four parts: CPD, research, practice, profession, than we can start to address how to record it and how to self-evaluate and externally evaluate it all. I like the CPD plan, log of activities and the evaluative aspect to the whole thing. We would also need a research plan, log(?) and an evaluative aspect(?) [maybe a research blog?]. It isn't clear how one is to record (c.v.?) activities that represent achievement in practice [your job] and your contribution to the profession [your association activities as opposed to just membership?]. Hmmm.

reflexivity in the practice of librarianship

It's been a convergence of reading and ideas lately. I was thinking about my article I'm working on regarding definitions of academic librarian competency and the implications of some of its initial results. There was something about the results I found quite disturbing but couldn't quite pin down. I happened to start reading "The Philosophical problem of truth in librarianship" (Labaree and Scimeca, 2008). On page 46 of the L&S article the concept of learned professionals and reflective practitioners was discussed, as those "who appl[y] experiential reflexivity, interpretation, and application to their work...." and "...a reflective practitioner is any individual who engages in a systemic inquiry about his/her own practice and pays deliberate attention to his/her own professional experiences."

The light went on. My research was showing there was a lack of reflective practice in the different authors' uses of the concept of competency. Eek. An unexpected and yet fascinating result, and one which I never would have recognized myself, if I hadn't read some of the business literature available on competency. We don't define, or we adopt, borrow and mutate, or create these definitions but don't seem to reflect on the implications of what we are doing with this concept, or not doing. It shouldn't have been all that unusual an "aha!" since I am cynically wont to believe this of many practicing members of the LIS field. For some reason I expected better of those writing on competency.

I also happened to pick up the book on "Building your portfolio: the CILIP guide" as part of my reading on an investigation of the use of portfolios in the renewal, promotion and permanence process. There is a whole chapter on reflective writing, as this is an integral part of their process of eventually applying for a designation through CILIP. It made me very happy to see reflective writing and reflective practice "institutionalized" in such a positive way. I believe research to some extent enforces reflective thinking but not everyone does research. It was great to see reflexivity applied in the daily work context since this is the world most of us still inhabit. I'm going to try harder myself, documenting and hopefully increasing the number of posts to this blog.

research methodology: not as straightforward as you'd like

Well, I finally thought to wander through some web-based descriptions of content analysis. Very fascinating especially in application to a specific project, as opposed to just reading and understanding the theory - two very different "animals" theory and application...

Here I am trying to figure out how to do textual analysis and I discover that what I am doing, on reflection, is trying to describe and make inferences about characteristics of a communication (how we describe competency and what that communicates about the concept, and us) [Wikipedia quoting Ole Holsti, 1969]. The Colorado State University guide further helped refine my understanding of what I was attempting by providing an even more exhaustive description of the process, including steps. With their help, I was able to recognize I was attempting conceptual analysis not relational analysis. There is only one concept I'm investigating, the presence of competency and what form(s) the definitions take.

My first selection was for the presence of the concept of competency or competencies in conjunction with a discussion of academic or college librarians. I then coded for specific words or patterns, or the absence thereof, which was based on my assumptions of what form this definition would take. I'm not interested in how many times the words that make up any definition of competency/ies occur within each article.

What I discovered through actual coding is that I need to record the concept and its appearance in different forms, and in the authors' uses of different words. I need to recognize the equivalency (synonyms, at least in this literature) in the use of some terms. For example, knowledge, education, and experience seem to be used interchangeably. All this resulted in an alteration of the coding scheme, a reassessment of the content and a more mature version of the concept. It took alot to get here though, quite surprisingly.

After I've recoded, the next step is to actually understand the implications of the data, some of which is beginning to be revealed and is unexpected. I'm looking forward to this part.