Finding a Grain of Sand and Defining your Variables

I also found the Luker chapter this week to be very insightful and really helpful in giving some last minute advice in terms of writing my SSHRC proposal. She gives reassurance that it is impossible to take into account everything, and I used her sampling techniques or data cropping to help myself focus my project to a more manageable size. However, after reading the Generalization section of the chapter, I was a bit concerned whether the “grain of sand” that I chose to investigate very closely would be able to provide insight to a larger picture. 

I found the section on operationalization to be very interesting (and she used a long but good example to illustrate her point). Luker makes the point that language can be a factor in influencing the quality and nature of the data that we collect from subjects. I came to understand that it is important not only for me to clearly define the variables within my research, but it is equally as important to determine the meanings that my subjects attribute to my variables. The subjects may not think on the same wavelength as you when it comes to particular concepts or terms, and this can greatly influence how they interpret your questions and the information that you collect from them.