One of the pieces of demographic data I collected was the occupations of all the adults.  I was hoping I might be able to look at the interview data and the drawings broken down by occupation type.  Specifically, I had in mind that one common way to break down occupation by type was:

• Non-science Professional
• Science Professional
• Non-science Non-professional
• Science Non-professional

However, I am having a lot of trouble finding anything in the literature to support these divisions and to help me classify my list of participant occupations (for instance, where would RV technician go?).

As I'm going through the first third of my interviews I am carefully writing a narrative of my thoughts as I read the families' responses to my interview questions.  Most of the questions I asked in the interviews were aimed at getting the families to talk about why it is that they think they drew what they did.  In families with young children (I'd say 6 and under) it is more likely than not that they will carefully explain to me that the museum is 'done' differently by parents with younger children. This explanation comes up quite a bit.  What interests me is why? 

Are people making an excuse for what they perceive to be a less-than-fabulous drawing?  If so, they obviously don't have any problems feeling justified in making that excuse, but they DO feel like it is necessary to let me know.  Does this imply that they think they have something to be embarrassed about?  Do they feel like they should be doing complex, sciency things with their time at the science museum and are explaining to me why their drawings don't reflect this?  If so, there is something in that.  Something that speaks to a subtext in the museum beyond leisure. 

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Rhiannon Crain
Center for Informal Learning
and Schools Fellow
University of California, Santa Cruz
Education Department
rcrain@ucsc.edu

I am using this blog as:

1) A catchall for writing and ideas that may be included in a final, more traditional, dissertation.

2) A space to discuss with colleagues and committee members hang-ups, developing ideas, and analysis methods

3) A place to try things out with some accountability


Currently, I have:

1) Used StudioCode to revisit each of my 36 families' interviews from December 2007

2) Used StudioCode to meticulously account for what each family drew during their interview. I now know what was drawn by person, age, family, and time. Most of what people drew was exhibits. They also drew the store, the line to get in, the ticket counter, the cafe, the coffee cart, the bathrooms, and their parking spot (but only when they managed to get a really good one).

2) Aggregated all the information I have about each family into one document that includes: notes I took while interviewing, notes I took while transcribing, information from the demographic interivews, information about the video files (length, location), and some basic information from analysis of their drawings (# of people, # of items drawn).

3) Transcribed the interview portions of each drawing interview in StudioCode, and exported these files to excel to work on developing a comprehensive coding scheme.

4) Developed a database in JMP statistical software for analyzing the macro trends in the data (who drew what, what is happening across families, etc).

5) Trained (coaxed really) baby Obe to sit on a playmat behind my desk and play with his toys for periods up to 45 minutes.

6) Begun developing a cognitive framework with which to present my literature review on museums (this warrents a future blog post all on its own).

7) Revisited my research questions and developed what, at best, might be called a chaotic matrix that matches analysis with questions being answered.

8) Looked in detail at 6 interviews and written narrative accounts of the conversation from which to 'winnow' the important themes and directions taken by my participants.