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Model: The Effect of Parent-Child Interaction on Parental Information Behavior

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On the 4th anniversary of the release of my dissertation, and since I haven’t had time to publish to any journals like most academics do (read: 3 kids plus a full time job leaves little time for little else), I’ve made use of my furlough time to do a quick (well academically quick) writeup of the model I developed as a part of my research on parental assessment of video game appropriateness for their children. Some may find it interesting or wish to challenge it or both. I figure anything is better than letting it stagnate in a 200 page dissertation no one is going to read.

Below you will find the simplified model, an explanation of its basic parts, as well as the more developed version below it. For a full explanation with examples from my study, it starts on page 169 of my dissertation. If this has piqued your interest, I have also created a quick writeup of my study (to save you from reading the entire dissertation) and I have published the slides I used in my dissertation defense.

The effect of Parent-Child Interaction on Parental Information Behavior: A Model by Diana Harrelson Hubbard (2015)

This is simplified from my original version (see below), but I think that makes it easier to utilize for other studies and other types of parental information behavior above and beyond video game assessments.

Breakdown:

The model consists of 4 basic parts.

  1. The first is the dividing line that separates Interaction For Children and Interaction With Children.
  2. The second are the intersecting domains of Learning, Teaching, and Understanding
  3. The third is the age timeline from 0 to 18
  4. The last are the stages from 1 to 4

Part 1:
Concept – the interactions of parental information behavior and their children change as their children age.

The first major delineation of the model is moving from interacting FOR children to interacting WITH children.

This defining line made itself evident after evaluating how parents of children of different age groups interacted with information when it concerned their children and how *successful that interaction was depending on the type and domain of interaction and the child’s age.

It became evident after evaluating the data that parents who had more conversations with their older children and who made decisions with them had far more success in having open and clear communication about media and its appropriateness than those who decided everything for their children and subjected them to a more authoritarian rule. Those parents who worked with their older children were less worried about their children’s interactions with media than those who preferred to do things for them.

*success is of course subjective here but usually included the lack of a need for discipline or worry because the parent/child relationship was such that there was a clear level of trust or at least an evolving one that they were working on together

Part 2:
Concept – the parental information behavior domains parents interact within, as it concerns their children, changes as their children age.

The second major delineation is broken up into three domain spheres: Learning, Teaching, & Understanding

The Learning domain consists of all of those things parents do to learn what they need in order to parent. This includes the information rush parents go through when they find out they’re expecting as well as interacting with it to fulfill their children’s information needs before their children are able to do so on their own.

The Teaching domain consists of the information behavior as it relates to the parent helping to teach the child whether it be a homeschool situation or supplemental to an external student learning system. It is also about teaching the child how to interact with information on their own. This environment bridges the For children and the With children as the child ages and becomes more independent in their own information behavior.

The Understanding domain is the beginning of a mutual understanding between the child and the parent as the child becomes independent in their information behavior and the parent seeks to understand their child’s new information needs and behaviors.

Part 3:
Concept – tracking parental information behavior as the child ages from 0 to 18.

This is shown via the timeline that cuts through the middle of the model.

Though my research focused on recruiting parents of children 4 to 17, parents discussed their younger and older children as well as their participant children’s behaviors when they were younger. For example, the average age most children in the study started gaming was 3.5. This timeline is most important as it relates to part 4.

Part 4:
Concept – parental information behavior, as it concerns their children, tends to go through 4 stages corresponding to the child’s age. **

  1. Stage 1 – Birth to Age 4
  2. Stage 2 – Age 4 to Age 9
  3. Stage 3 – Age 9 to Age 14
  4. Stage 4 – Age 14 to Age 18

Stage 1
Birth to Age 4
In this stage the parent’s information behavior as it concerns their children is for their child and focuses primarily on learning about parenting and then transitioning into teaching as the child hits pre-school age.

Stage 2
Age 4 to Age 9
Parental information behavior in this stage is a two pronged approach still on learning, but with an emphasis on teaching. Here, the child starts to become more independent and starts to be able to take on their own information needs, but they tend to still have a lot of needs that only their parent can fulfill. Additionally, due to their young age, they still have a lot of supervision.

Stage 3
Age 9 to Age 14
This is the stage where parents were most concerned in my study. This was for two important reasons. One, children were becoming completely independent in their own information behaviors needing less assistance from their parents. And two, this is the stage where most children start to enter puberty. Here, parents were less concerned with violence and more concerned with sexual content or other improper things like language and drug use.

Stage 4
Age 14 to 18
By the time the child enters high school, or just after, and until they are deemed an adult by culture and society there is an interesting phase where the child can in some cases surpass the parents abilities and understandings when it comes to media and information behavior as it pertains to popular culture and even technical aspects. If a parent has not fully transitioned from For to With and has not moved into wanting to understand what their teen is doing and why, from the teen’s perspective, they will likely lose all control, access to, and input on the teen’s media consumption. This is especially the case the more authoritarian they become and this will cause the teen to hide their information behavior instead of share it (or at least a portion of it) with their parents.

**Side note: There may be differences as to how parents approach these stages with subsequent children and that may also depend on the age gap between their children. Additionally, I did NOT do any research on child information behavior specifically, nor did I focus on any previous research on children and media. My research was focused solely on parents, so this can certainly be added to over time as needed to focus on the needs of children if it makes sense to do so.

Now, if you review my presentation of my dissertation defense, you will see a more detailed version of this model, which I will add below.

Added details: Any information behavior activities the child has at this stage are actively and directly observed by parent and tend to be on a closed system (no outside access).

Added detail: At this stage, parents tend to provide their children their own devices, but in a locked down mode, which allows for semi open interactions that can be supervised as needed (passive) but in the presence of their parents (direct). Online access usually comes in the form of white listed programs or school related needs.

Added Detail: During this stage children become more independent in their media use and information needs as they need less help from their parents in order to do so. While the system may still be only semi open (some lock downs still exist), the child is now able to interact with their media outside of the parents purview. This new independence tends to come with a cost though as the parent becomes more active in paying attention to what their child is doing via remote observation (nanny programs).

Added Detail: In this stage parents had the least amount of influence or control over the information with which their children interacted, thus their children made most of their information behavior decisions on their own. While parents still made decisions at this stage, children tended to have more influence on the decisions being made. Here there were natural barriers to Mature content which included initial cost and access to a credit card.

Though most teens had open access to interact with information as they pleased in that they were less restricted the older they were, their parents still had control over the access itself and would remove wireless/mobile access when needed (passive monitoring – decisions made here were usually based on grades, attitude etc.) instead of trying to control access to specific things at an application level. This meant it ended up as an all or nothing for the teen. As teens tend to be very protective of their online access, it was a line few wanted to cross.

So? What’s the point?

From my dissertation:

This model was designed to show how interconnected parent-child interactions are with parental information behavior and the effects of this interconnectedness on it. To put it simply, parental information behavior cannot exist without this interconnectedness and it is because of this interconnectedness that it needs to exist as well as persist and change over time.

The examples [see dissertation starting on p. 169] were provided to show how parent-child interactions affect parental behavior on a multitude of levels including information, communication, and decision-making strategies. Additionally, they were to show how this behavior both changes and becomes more complex as children age. Thus, a ratings system that provides the same type of information for every level at every stage may lose the ability to successfully help the parent as their child ages and they reach the later stages, which is arguably when both parents and children need it most.

The major take-away is that children can greatly affect how and why their parents interact with information and it goes well beyond age in the sense of restricting material based on age alone, especially the age ratings that are in place today. Finding ways to educate and assist both parent and child, to provide information in such a way that both can interact with it, and each other, is key to successful family information behavior and any information system that wants to support it.

Research Key Findings

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The following are a list of key findings from my research on parental assessment of video game content appropriateness for their children. You can read the first round of published results here.

  • There were no parents in the study who were able to definitively name all of the parts of the ESRB Ratings System or all six ratings and over two-thirds did not know what process games went through to get rated. This resulted in the majority of interviewed parents knowing little to nothing about the ratings system even if they claimed they used it.
  • Interviewed parents had very specific criteria they used to judge video game appropriateness against and once any of those lines were crossed, the game was considered unsuitable. Though violence was a concern for interviewed parents, perceptions of violence were far more nuanced than the ESRB Rating System descriptors were able to convey, thus many had to do further research to properly assess the game and make sense of the content. Sexual content, however, was of a far higher concern than violence even for those interviewed parents who considered themselves very liberal in the types of games they allowed their children to play.
  • Interviewed parents with special needs children considered the needs of their child and the ability for a game to help him or her as more important than staying within content that was age appropriate.
  • Based on the interviews, every family’s and child’s needs are different, including children within the same family. Therefore, a single information system, such as the ESRB Ratings System, may never be able to completely fulfill all of a parent’s information needs as they attempt to bridge their knowledge gap. As long as it provides a place to start, that may be all it needs to do.
  • Relevant to the previous finding, interviewed parents attempted to bridge their knowledge gaps in multiple ways in order to assess game content and make sense of it. These included using the ESRB Ratings System, Internet searches (including specific sites as well as more general results) to find game reviews (both community and professional), game marketing (including websites, packaging, and commercials), and Let’s Plays (video game play-throughs).
    Credibility of the gaming information source was very important to interviewed parents. They cited both the source of the documentation as well as the reputation of the reporting source to be important factors in establishing credibility.
  • Though a few interviewed parents were in favor of a law, most were not. Those in favor cited it as an extra level of protection or as something they thought was already in place. Those not in favor cited issues with enforcement, the inability for laws to really assist them, as well as a general dislike of having the government interfere with their role as parents.

Specific answers to research questions will be published in a separate post.

Dr. Diana

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It was mentioned to me that I should update this blog to reflect the fact that I have finally finished my PhD! It only took me 6 years or so, but to be fair I also got married, had twins, and moved to Hawaii in the middle of all of that. So overall, not too shabby of a timeline given those variables.

If you’re looking to get a PhD or in the process of attaining one and you’d like to chat or commiserate, feel free to hit me up on Twitter or in the comments here.

If you’re interested in video games and research in that domain, I’ll be posting results of my study for my dissertation in the days to come!

First Round of Results from my Dissertation Research

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Here are a few stats from my research on parents and video games copied directly from my dissertation. This post will be the first of several where I talk about my ethnography and the results of my study.

Research Participants
There were 46 total participants in 30 interviews representing 26 households. As defined in Chapter One, a household represents parents who participated alone as well as those who participated together (in the same interview or separately). This singular unit was created to avoid inflation of the numbers where two parents were talking about their shared children and home environments, as that would skew the numbers against those where only one parent participated. Of the participants, 11 were children and 35 were parents. The 35 parents represented 39 qualifying children in total including the 11 who contributed. Of the 35 participating parents, 18 were mothers and 17 were fathers. The parents spanned in ages from 25 to 55. The youngest child participant was 4 and the oldest was 16.

This study afforded opportunities for additional analyses, given the rich qualitative data collected throughout the interviews. Each section below provides this additional information as a way to give context to the research participants and better understand their relationship with video games.

Video Games
Over 200 games were mentioned throughout the course of the interviews, not including the various versions of multiple game franchises. The top three most mentioned games were Minecraft (85% of households), followed by Grand Theft Auto (65%), and then World of Warcraft (42%). Almost two-thirds (64%) of the 39 children played M-rated games and over three-quarters (77%) played T-rated games. None of the children in the study were old enough to purchase M-rated games and only 31% of the 39 children were old enough to purchase T-rated games.

Video Game Devices
Participants played console, computer, and mobile/tablet games equally (88%). Handheld games (58%), followed by web-based (38%), and then educational (35%) rounded out the list. Over three quarters of all 26 households (77%) used some sort of cloud gaming services such as Steam, Origin, Xbox Live, or PlayStation Network. All households downloaded games digitally, whereas only about three-quarters (77%) still bought physical game media.

Video Game Spaces
The majority of game spaces (58%) were publicly shared spaces with the family. Very few (8% of all households) had completely private spaces where stationary devices such as computer towers or consoles were located in children’s rooms. The remaining households (35%) had mixed game spaces due to the use of portable electronics such as laptops, handhelds, and mobile/tablet devices. The majority of households (69%) had some sort of time restrictions placed on video game play; however, less than half of them (39%) considered them to be strict rules.

Parental Assessment
An overwhelming majority of the 26 households (92%) performed some sort of assessment on video games before their children were allowed to play them. Almost all of the 26 households (92%) discussed video game content with their children, and most (85%) stated they knew their children to self-regulate and/or they trusted their children to only play the games of which they knew their parents approved.

Parental Involvement
Almost three-quarters of the 26 households (73%) watched their children play video games and many (69%) played video games with their children. Over half (54%) of the 26 households allowed their children access to the Internet to either play online video games such as massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG i.e., World of Warcraft) which can only be played online, or to play standard multiplayer video games with others online.

You can read about the key findings here. Answers to my specific research questions will be in a different post.

The Subversiveness of Elvis Presley

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“Communist authorities equally understood Elvis’s subversive manner, even as an Army private.When it was announced that Presley was bound for the U.S. base at Friedberg, the East German Communist Party accused the United States of plotting to undermine the morals of Red youth,’ Karal Ann Marling relates. ‘To show that this act of provocation would not be tolerated, party boss Walter Ulbricht ordered the arrest and imprisonment of fifteen teenagers who marched through the streets of Leipzig in 1959 shouting, ‘Long live Elvis Presley!’” (p. 268)

Cohen, R. D. (1997). The delinquents: Censorship and youth culture in recent US history. History of Education Quarterly, 37(3), 251-270.

So, about that dissertation thing

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Well, being a PhD candidate means one thing and one thing only – now I have to write a dissertation. While yes I knew this was the next stage in the journey, I am not sure I am adequately prepared. I know that seems silly, I mean I have written a Master’s thesis and all. This one just seems (and is!) so much bigger and more daunting. I’m one of those people where the more daunting something seems the harder it is for me to get going on it. However, once I get going I’m usually FULL STEAM AHEAD! 

Now to just figure out how to get going. One thing I’ve tried so far is to buy a few books on the subject of dissertation writing. Since this particular piece of writing is more traditional than say my past ethnographies, I really have to figure out the ins and outs of it and what is expected of me. While I’m sure there is likely some dissertation writing class offered by the university, I am not local and therefore cannot take advantage of that.

So, this means I need to educate myself on it.

Here are the books I bought:

  1. Writing a Successful Thesis or Dissertation: Tips and Strategies for Students in the Social and Behavioral Sciences 
  2. How To Tame Your PhD (Thesis Whisperer Books)
  3. Authoring a PhD: How to Plan, Draft, Write and Finish a Doctoral Thesis or Dissertation (Palgrave Study Skills)

So far book 1 reads more like I textbook than I would like, but I’ll muddle my way through it anyway.

Book 2 seems good, but it has a lot of weird typo issues on the Kindle edition.

Book 3 I have yet to start. I’ll at least finish book 2 first before I try. Book 1 may take a little longer.

My goal is to have these finished by the end of September as I’d like to try to have my first three chapters written by the end of November so that I can defend my topic before the ends of this semester and hopefully get my IRB application submitted and turned in at the start of Spring (if not just before). This has to be done soon in order for me to start my research portion in January and hopefully be finished with the physical research aspect by end of February. Then analyze the rest of spring and into summer when I hope to finish and then start writing by fall to submit my first draft by the end of that semester or by the beginning of Spring 2015.

My goal is to graduate May/15. I’ll have finished my phd in 5 years if I can do that. That doesn’t seem so bad in my book. Especially given that I have a full time job and twins!

Moving again!

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Well, this year has been a busy year! I completed my qualification exams (you can read all about that here) in April after preparing for them all semester and since then I have been preparing to move to Hawaii!

I officially cleared out of El Paso Friday and will be hanging out in Dallas for a couple of weeks before I head off to Oahu. I am looking forward to going from the desert to a tropical island. It should be quite a culture shock, one of the things I love as an anthropologist.

All of this is going on as I start work on my dissertation research, which I will talk more about in a future post (let’s just say it has to do with gaming). On that note, my hope is to be able to keep this blog a bit more current once I get settled on the island. I’ll probably post a bit about that process over on Tumblr if you’re interested.

On top of quals and moving, I’m also finally taking the time to work on my web portfolio. I’ll post about that as soon as there is something worth showing there. I’m hoping to pick up some UX/IXD/IA side work as a result. Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll send you a private preview.

So yeah, it’s been a busy year and now you know why this blog has been neglected!

On Getting a PhD

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Since becoming a PhD candidate* mid-April (hence the long hiatus on this blog) I have been asked multiple times why is it that I am not specifically going into an academic career. I would like to take a moment to respond to this and to address what I believe to be the more pressing issue – that of PhDs in the USA.

PhDs and Academic Work
I am not saying that being an academic is not attractive to me. Nor am I saying that I would not take an academic position were it granted to me. What I am saying is that I have already been in job markets related to my degree for over a decade. In fact, my work experience actually matches if not exceeds my academic experience. This means I look for positions where I can apply both my experience and education rather than just one or the other. To accomplish this, I often go for positions I have never officially held simply because they seem to offer a challenge and the opportunity to learn something new.

So, while I am not against an academic career and would not balk at one if one were to be granted to me, I am also under no illusion that it is the only thing you can do with a PhD. This means I did not enter my program with the thought that an academic career would be my only end-game (and neither should you!). The fact of the matter is academic positions with tenure tracks are few and far between. Most of them seem to be going the way of the dodo bird as those in them retire and not replaced. Additionally, associate professorships are becoming exceedingly competitive for little to no money simply because the supply exceeds the demand.

Then Why Get a PhD?
So, you may ask, if you’re not going into academics – why get a PhD? Speaking from personal experience, I was given the opportunity and money to do so. Secondly, I am one of those busy bodies that always has to be learning something**, so why not put those efforts toward a degree? Thirdly, and I hate that this is partially the case, as a woman in technology I am automatically paid less money and attention. Though a PhD isn’t going to ensure I get more of either one of those, pair it up with my work experience and the words “Cyber Anthropologist” and it does tend to turn a few heads.

Fourthly, I enjoy school. I enjoy the academic world. I love the “ding”*** I get at the end of every semester when my A’s roll in (yes, I am a 4.0 student who works full time). I enjoy learning about new subjects. I enjoy new understandings and light bulbs that go off as a result of my studies. I enjoy finding gaps in current research and knowing that I can fill those gaps and how to do so.

Lastly, I like it. I am good at it. Doing the work and achieving that level of education pleases me. I did it for myself and I am happy that I did. If you can’t be satisfied with doing something because you want to, then why do it?

PhDs and the Job Market
Though those on the PhD track may not find positions in academia, this does not mean we cannot find jobs outside of it. In fact, many of the skills we have gained in working toward the PhD as well as the education itself are perfect opportunities to market ourselves to the public sphere. We, as PhD students, need to learn how to market these things better so that employers can truly understand what it is that sets us apart and what we can bring to the table that others can’t.

That said, rest assured I am under no illusion that I am more qualified or better because I am a PhD candidate. Rather, it’s because I am a PhD candidate that I can back up what I do and how I do it with the reasons why I do it as well as provide other ways it can be done. It is because of my education I know I do not know everything, however, I also know how to figure out what I do not know. It’s the ability to know both how and why, or at least the ability to figure those things out, that has always appealed to me and always will.

Considering a PhD?
For those considering a PhD – if you are not going to continue to contribute to your debt to do it and if you are doing it because it is something you want, which would satisfy you even if you were not addressed as Professor, I say GO FOR IT! Go into it with the understanding that PhDs aren’t only useful for a career in academics. They carry as much value as you give them. So, give it all you have and make it count for you out there in both the public and academic spheres. If you start out that way, you can tailor your education to be as open as possible making you more marketable. To that end, I have always written papers and sought projects outside the world of academics as a part of my academic studies and I suggest you do the same.

Hiring a PhD?
For those who are in the position of hiring someone – don’t let the letters PhD mislead you. Just because someone has these letters on their resume or at the end of their name, it does not mean they are only suited to do academic work. These are true go getters with a heightened sense of autonomy and responsibility for their own work. They have the ability to do independent thought and research, which means if they don’t know the answer or how to do something – you can rest assured they can figure it out. And, last but not least, they are willing to put the work into what ever the project is in order to see it to its completion and will do so by elegantly and diligently overcoming any barrier or impasse that may come their way. Give them a chance, they won’t disappoint you.

A Few Shout Outs:
To my fellow students who have recently completed their quals – congratulations and good luck!

To those in the job market – broaden your scope, the opportunities out there may surprise you!

To those hiring – consider the broader implications of the degree and what it took to get there!

Notes:
*PhD Candidate (aka ABD) – I have completed all of my coursework and passed my qualification exams. I will begin my dissertation research this summer and hope to complete my PhD by 2015 (within 5 years of having started it). You can see my ramblings about this process here.

**Continuous Learning – other learning opportunities on my list at the moment include learning Spanish, bettering my German, learning Piano (I played other instruments in school), and getting back into programming a bit

***Ding – this is part of what I call the “ding effect” (I referred to it in my previous research). It is that sense of accomplishment that people get from playing video games that causes them to want to continue to play the game even if it means doing a lot of the same repetitive tasks over and over again.

– Side note on this for all of you agile people out there, it can end up being very hard to achieve this ding effect in an agile work environment where people continuously work on ongoing projects and that may lead to faster developer / designer burnout. You MUST give your team a ding every once in a while to encourage them to keep going. Otherwise, ongoing projects just end up resembling the ever rotating mouse wheel with no end and no carrot in sight and you will lose your best and brightest over and over again. (Yes – speaking from experience from working on a team that has turned over at least 6 teams over the last 3.5 years.)

Phd Candidate!

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Well, it’s a go! My committee likes me, they really like me! /silly 

Yep! I passed. All that hard work paid off. I have two different dissertation ideas they were happy with. I’ll try running with the first one, if that doesn’t work I’m glad I have a fall back.

This summer I’ll be doing a lit review and this fall I’ll start writing. I hope to be done in 2 years. Seems like such a long time from now, but I know it will go by very quickly.

Now it’s time to pack for Hawaii as we are moving there in about 2 months!

And with that, I am done… for now.

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I have just submitted my #Phd qualification exam answers.

It has been one roller coaster of a week involving many outside distractions and though I have been up about 24 hours now (which included a 10 hour road trip with infants from west Texas to north Texas to visit family for the holiday), the feeling of elation is so great right at this moment that I’m not even sure I could sleep if I tried.

I may not get much opportunity anyway as I’m sure my infant twins will be up in a couple of hours.

Who needs sleep anyway?

I’m sure the ensuing dread of waiting to hear the results will likely keep me up many nights during the next two to three weeks. Oh, and of course working on the oral exam portion as well. Yeah…

*Twitch*

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Eyes burning, red, and twitching. I of course ended up going off in a totally new and previously unresearched by me direction for one of my qual exam questions which, while it has been exciting to do, has me also doing brand new research to write a paper that is due at 10am the day after tomorrow. Yes, I am a glutton for punishment. Why else would I be going for my PhD? *twitch*

One question left to answer!

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Alright, well I have 1 question and a little over 2 days left to answer it as well as go back and edit all of them for grammar, citations, and content. Trying to decide if my page lengths are the result of me being just that bad ass that I can answer them as concisely as I am, or if it’s because I’m not answering them fully enough. /sigh

This has been a very exhausting week. Add to this whole exam process the fact that I have twin infants to care for, a full time job, and we are taking a road trip basically at the same (cause it’s a holiday weekend as well!) and, yeah…

Day four of seven draws to a close…

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Well, I have two questions completed and I’m about half way through the third. I’m getting to that place mentally where I just keep rearranging the text on the page, so that probably means at this point it’s just best if I step away and look at it with fresh eyes tomorrow. My hope is that I can finish this one tomorrow and start on my last one before the end of the day.

That said, I found out today I have some serious work for my job to get done tomorrow as well. If I can find time to do both then perhaps some of that serious work can blend into Wednesday and Thursday while still making enough progress on my papers to be done by Friday without having to take time off. Otherwise, the option is to bust my ass at work tomorrow to get about 3 days worth of work done in one and then take the next two off to work on my papers. Right now, I’m just too exhausted to think about it. Again – something to look at with fresh eyes in the morning.

I hope I’m not too optimistic about my progress so far. For now I’m just going to keep it on the down low so as to not jinx myself.

All right, my right eye is twitching. Time to go to bed.

Second Question Complete!

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I finished most of Q4, the second question of my exams that I chose to tackle, yesterday. I just had to do some reassessment and rewriting of it today. I’m starting my third question (Q2) tonight with hopes that I can finish it by tomorrow and then the last question I hope to finish by Wednesday. This way I can spend Thursday doing edits or padding (come all we all do it) to meet minimum expectations in time to turn them all in Friday by 10am.

We’ll see how the writing goes tonight. If I get enough done I’ll try not to take Wednesday or Thursday off. I may not have much of a choice for Thursday. It’s the day we are leaving for Dallas and the day before a holiday weekend, not like much work will be done that day anyway! 

Day Three

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Time to get this party started again! I got the twins up, bathed, dressed, and fed twice. Now they are down for a nap. The husband is also still asleep. The hope is they can all get up at the same time and enjoy each other’s company (instead of the grouch fest that was yesterday), while I bust out at least 1 if not 2 more answers.

I’m debating taking Wednesday and Thursday off so I can get this stuff finished. I already have Friday off for a holiday, but it does me no good as we are driving into see family on Thursday night (yay 12 hour road trip with twin infants!) and my exam papers are due by Friday morning at 10am.

It will all depend on how today goes, so let’s hope it goes well!

I have a cup of freshly brewed vanilla spice tea in hand and am donning my glasses (they are my academic disguise – and they help make sure my eyes don’t tire out too fast).

Go go super Solli!

I can’t spell information!

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Is it too much to ask that my fingers figure out how to type out the word information? I mean seriously. It is one of the most typed out words in all of my qualification exams being that my degree is in information science.

For some reason though, my fingers keep typing it informaiton! I have enough other words that Word does not recognize that I have to type over and over again (interdisciplinary anyone?) making the ugly red line seemingly pop up every 4th word as it is!

End of the first night…

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Well, I’ve mapped out citations for 2 parts of the first 3 part question. What does that mean? It means I’ve broken up the question in all of its parts into different Evernote notes and then went through all of my materials (also on Evernote) and put relevant quotes with their citations on each one.

It’s part of my leanphd methodology that I do fully intend to map out for those who want to be in the know, one day. I just need to find time to do it. I usually do this mapping in scrivener, but since I am taking advantage of multiple computing devices to get this done I felt that Evernote was the better choice for the time being. Once I get all the information in one place, I may transfer it all to scrivener. I’ll have to see if that seems worth it or not when the time comes.

Alas, this is the end of the night for me for tomorrow I shall start anew and fresh and hopefully somewhat rested. I still have the rest of this question to map out and then the next three. Then, you know, the actual writing part.

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