Wednesday 24 November 2010

Emergence

I may be somewhat disappointed with the quantity of data I have to deal with, but not with the quality of it, nor the variety of ways it can be analysed. I do of course hope that time remains to gather more, and for those who have already participated, you can be sure I will be contacting you again, and will hope to interview some of you in more depth.

What is interesting is what is beginning to emerge from the first sights of the data. I cannot be sure of course, since I need to apply statistical analyses of variance, but I think there may be some interesting effects there.

What is also interesting in the 'Chinese' sense of that, is that when I submitted two sample chapters of my eventual write up, one of the criticisms, or some might say back handed complements depending upon your perspective, is that I was called upon for being too positivist, too empirical.

Well that is the consequence of standing midway between science and the humanities in my "epistemology"

The qualitative data that I can cull from this, as someone embedded in the phenomenon, with my own "verstehen" will be second to none, thanks to you, my participants. You might not realise it from the task that you given me such invaluable information regarding not only the cognitive realities of autism, but the social construction of the situation we all find ourselves in and the way society attempts to remedy this educationally.