Listening
Unless we have a hearing impairment, we will spend much or all of our time, consciously or sub-consciously, listening: to friends and members of our fam-ilies, to our colleagues and associates, to the people we meet in the street or in the shops, to radio and television programmes, to records, tapes or compact discs, to the ‘background’ sounds of our environment. Through this constant listening, you will have developed skills in identifying different people’s voices, their attitudes and emotions, their openness and honesty. You will have learned how to extract useful information from listening, and how to relate this information to that coming to you from other sources.
The issues involved in listening for research are considered further in the section on Interviews in Chapter 6.
Watching
We watch our children, pets and those we care for at home; we watch the behaviour of our colleagues at work; we watch what we are doing ourselves as we cross the street or negotiate our way through a crowded room; we watch television for information, entertainment or relaxation; we watch sporting or cultural events in our leisure time. Through watching, you will have learnt to identify a wide range of visual signals, indicative of, for example, friendliness, unease or danger. Watching, like listening and reading, involves categorizing.
The issues involved in watching for research are considered further in the section on Observations in Chapter 6.
Choosing
Every day of our lives we make many deliberate choices. These range from the fairly trivial – which breakfast cereal to have, which route to take to work, when to go to bed – to the momentous – whether to move house or change our job, whether to get married, split up or have a child. In making choices, we are aware that there are a variety of options open to us, each with different impli-cations. Through choosing, you will have developed skills of relevance to selecting topics for research, methods to be used in research, and the subjects or objects to be sampled during the research.
Sampling and selection are considered in Chapter 6.
Questioning
In performing everyday skills, we are implicitly questioning the information we receive through our senses, placing this within acceptable frameworks, critically assessing its relevance, and challenging it when we find it wanting.
You will have built up considerable skill in questioning, both directly, through asking questions of others, and indirectly, through reviewing the information you have gathered from various sources. These skills are particularly relevant when using documentary sources and questionnaire techniques.
The use of Documents and Questionnaires for data collection is considered further in Chapter 6.
Summarizing
We do not treat all of the information which we constantly receive in everyday life as being of equal value, but reject most of it as being of little or no value, and critically question much of the rest. What we choose to retain in our memories for future application will typically be in summary form. Thus, if a colleague asks us what happened at a meeting yesterday, we will provide a summary response: we are highly unlikely to give, or be able to give, a ver-batim report. Through such everyday actions, you will have learnt a great deal about summarizing information: what to leave out, what to stress, what is of key importance.
The issues involved in summarizing data are considered in the section on Managing your data in Chapter 7.
Organizing
In addition to summarizing the information you receive in everyday life, you will have become quite adept at organizing it. Thus, in recounting what hap-pened at the meeting to your colleague, you will organize your account in a particular way. You might do this by giving them the key points first, and then filling in the detail; or by focusing on the most momentous events; or by telling your story in its historical sequence.
The techniques involved in organizing your research project are the subject of Chapter 5, Managing your project; while the organization of your writing is considered in the section on How to argue in Chapter 8.
Writing
Adults’ experience of writing, as of reading, varies quite considerably. Some of you will have recent experience of extended pieces of writing, such as reports or essays, perhaps even books. Others will be more familiar with shorter and more immediate forms of writing, such as emails, letters or memos. Or you may have done very little writing at all since your school days, having a job and a lifestyle which does not require much written communication.
Writing for research purposes is the subject of Chapter 8, Writing up.
Presenting
Presentation may be seen as related to writing. However, while you may have little current day to day experience of writing at any length, you are highly likely to have some experience of presenting your ideas in non-written forms:
verbally and/or visually. You will probably have had to do this to your col-leagues, to your fellow students, to your family and friends. Presenting forms part of the general process of discussion and argument. It is a key way in which you exert your influence on others and establish your place in the world.
The presentation of your research is considered further in the section on What do I do now? in Chapter 9.
Reflecting
The final everyday skill to be considered here, reflection, is perhaps the most researcherly. It has to do with the ability to stand back from, and think care-fully about, what you have done or are doing. You will almost certainly have done this many times, in reflecting on, for example, how the day at work went, or whether, had you said or done something differently, things might have worked out better. In research terms, it is particularly important to reflect upon your own role in the research process.
The issues of reflection and reflexivity are considered further in the section on Which methods suit? later in this chapter.
In carrying out your research project, you will probably make use of all of the everyday skills we have identified in this section. You will use them in
conjunction as well as individually, and you will devote a lot of conscious thought to your use and development of them.