I wanted to take a moment and talk about transcribing. I would think that anyone conducting social science research, has likely thought about whether field notes of observations would be enough (a quote here, a sketch there, a reflection, a picture), or if it will be necessary to conduct interviews, focus groups, or other. The challenge, of course, is that once data is captured in audio form, it will need to be transcribed in order to make any sense of what is there. Please, I beg you, correct me if I'm wrong!
Now, anyone who has done any transcribing can attest to the fact that it can be an onerous task. It is time intensive, and depending on the equipment one is using, and the recording quality, it can be a challenge to keep at it even when one has the best intentions (the black hole of the internet is always just one click away). The upside of transcribing, is that spending large amounts of time with participants' voices - (re)listening to their ideas, opinions, hopes, and frustrations - provides a researcher with an intimate knowledge of what and how participants said something - nuances that don't always translate to paper/screen - that later helps with data analysis and, in my case, dissertation writing.
The down side is transcribing takes time. Lots of time. In my research project, I have recorded roughly 23 hours of conversations and focus groups that include over 70 participants (a modest size study). And, I'm not fast at transcribing. It takes me about 1 hour for every 15 minutes of audio. So, to transcribe my recorded data would take approximately 90 hours. In part, this is likely due to the combination of: my average typing speed, so I fall behind the speakers; working on a single computer, which necessitates that I switch between windows as I start and stop the recording; poor audio quality as multiple paired conversations are being recorded at the same time so there is a lot of background noise. No, I can't just feed the audio through some voice-to-text software and produce a transcript instantly.
Now that I am almost done transcribing, I have a piece of advice for myself on future projects.
If I will only have a finite amount of time to transcribe, I should farm out the transcribing so that the little time I have can be spent on analyzing the data afterwards. It is always possible that once one has the transcription in hand, that one can listen to the recordings and make notes about voice inflection, themes, etc. There are various companies out there that charge reasonable prices (my recordings are such poor quality they were turned down... but maybe my future ones would be better - one can hope). This would mean that when some free time presents itself, the time could be spent thinking about the data rather than focusing on producing a hard copy.
To date
Submitted - Chapters 2, 3, 4
Revised submissions - Chapter 5
Two conversations to transcribe and then I begin working on Chapter 6 - yes, I am so excited!
Now, anyone who has done any transcribing can attest to the fact that it can be an onerous task. It is time intensive, and depending on the equipment one is using, and the recording quality, it can be a challenge to keep at it even when one has the best intentions (the black hole of the internet is always just one click away). The upside of transcribing, is that spending large amounts of time with participants' voices - (re)listening to their ideas, opinions, hopes, and frustrations - provides a researcher with an intimate knowledge of what and how participants said something - nuances that don't always translate to paper/screen - that later helps with data analysis and, in my case, dissertation writing.
The down side is transcribing takes time. Lots of time. In my research project, I have recorded roughly 23 hours of conversations and focus groups that include over 70 participants (a modest size study). And, I'm not fast at transcribing. It takes me about 1 hour for every 15 minutes of audio. So, to transcribe my recorded data would take approximately 90 hours. In part, this is likely due to the combination of: my average typing speed, so I fall behind the speakers; working on a single computer, which necessitates that I switch between windows as I start and stop the recording; poor audio quality as multiple paired conversations are being recorded at the same time so there is a lot of background noise. No, I can't just feed the audio through some voice-to-text software and produce a transcript instantly.
Now that I am almost done transcribing, I have a piece of advice for myself on future projects.
If I will only have a finite amount of time to transcribe, I should farm out the transcribing so that the little time I have can be spent on analyzing the data afterwards. It is always possible that once one has the transcription in hand, that one can listen to the recordings and make notes about voice inflection, themes, etc. There are various companies out there that charge reasonable prices (my recordings are such poor quality they were turned down... but maybe my future ones would be better - one can hope). This would mean that when some free time presents itself, the time could be spent thinking about the data rather than focusing on producing a hard copy.
To date
Submitted - Chapters 2, 3, 4
Revised submissions - Chapter 5
Two conversations to transcribe and then I begin working on Chapter 6 - yes, I am so excited!