After joining the SAFRI programme, I incorporated the social network idea into my SAFRI project, but unconsciously ended up with a different agenda. Instead of using the network to highlight potential problem areas and the challenges of teaching with technology, it morphed into me trying to demonstrate the effectiveness of using a social network to facilitate reflective practice. In hindsight, it’s clear that the 2 projects were at odds with one another, and the objectives were definitely not aligned.

When my supervisor pointed out that there was inconsistency in the 2 projects I really struggled to accept it. I was adamant that my methods were fine and She suggested that I hand over facilitation of the assignments within the network to other staff who didn’t have such a high personal stake in the success of the project, and I strongly disagreed. I found several reasons to explain why I had to be the person to run it, the strongest of which was that "…no-one else will try as hard as I will to make sure it works". Which kind of made her point.

When I went away and thought about our conversation I reviewed my objectives for the 2 projects, and then it was clear that they really were 2 different projects. One was suggesting that this would be a useful tool to describe the current state of affairs, which I know will be less than ideal. The other was intent on proving that the network would be a positive tool, rather than describing what would happen if we just incorporated one into the department.

After the painful realisation that I’d let my personal desire for this project to succeed override my objectivity as a researcher, I agreed to let others lead the social network assignments, with guidance from me. This will greatly reduce the impact of researcher bias, as well as synchronise the objectives of the 2 projects. As it stands now, it will more accurately describe the state of the department in terms of attitudes and skills around teaching and learning, and the levels of digital and information literacy, which will give me valuable data that will inform the next objectives of my study.

This was a great learning experience for me, and a warning of the dangers of getting too close to one’s project. There are some situations where the researcher can be an integral part of the project, but this experience has shown me when it would be detrimental to the process.

Day 1 of #SAFRI programme finished, excited to be a part of it, but no-one to tweet with and no laptops allowed #

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Someone told me that the SAFRI programme had changed their life, and I remember thinking that that might be taking it a bit far. But today brought me closer to thinking that it might not be that far from the truth. It wasn’t so much the content of the session, but the reflection and discussion that happened as a result of an exercise on conflict management. During the session, I was able to confront a part of me that isn’t the rational, logical person I usually think I am, and gave me a greater appreciation for the poor souls who have to try and understand why I think and do things so differently to them.

We spent a lot of time talking about the different approaches to managing conflict, with people who share similar psychological attributes identifying with certain approaches. I realised that I have ways of dealing with difficult situations that aren’t shared by most other people (I was the only person in my group, besides the facilitator, as opposed to 3 other groups of almost 10 in each group). My MBTI type is:

• Introvert – draw energy by looking internally, prefer reflection over action, prefer written communication
• iNtuitive – prefer theory and abstraction, imaginative, desire change
• Thinker – use logic and objectivity to make decisions, remain detached, truthful rather than tactful
• Perceiver – remain open and adapt to new information, be flexible, enjoy surprises, routines are limiting

The exercise I got the most out of today was to analyse a conflict and reflect on my own responses, as well as how I respond to the responses of others. Here’s the short reflection I put together after a few minutes of discussion with the facilitator:

I approach conflict logically, which is good for mediating the conflict of 3rd parties, but not so good when I’m personally involved. While other personality types might avoid conflict, I will sometimes create it by playing devil’s advocate. I’ll probe and push buttons to get a reaction and will sometimes take an opposing viewpoint just to have an interesting discussion (I’ll also not understand when the other party doesn’t appreciate this attempt to engage with them).

When I am involved in a conflict, I experience a rapid escalation of my own emotional response if I feel that those emotions aren’t being acknowledged, yet I have no natural tendency to acknowledge the emotions of other’s (“I’m right, so you must be wrong”). If my emotions are not acknowledged, I tend to withdraw and switch off emotionally. In those cases I find it difficult to let go and will definitely refuse to acknowledge the other person’s emotion…as a form of retribution (when I write it down like this, it seems insane, but in the moment, it’ perfectly clear to me).

On the other hand, if my emotions are acknowledged, there is a complete collapse of my resistance and I’m able to move towards resolution. However, I struggle to close the issue and will often find myself prolonging an argument to make the point that “I’m right”. When I do manage to avoid that and the conflict is resolved, I forget about it in minutes.

This experience,  and the wonderful conversations it generated afterwards, really gave me a greater insight into who I am, as well as how I relate to others. For the rest of the day I was acutely aware that almost everyone else in the room sees, and responds to the world differently to me, which I found both sobering (“I’m alone”) and inspiring (“I’m special”).

We switched back to a presentation / workgroup format today, with the focus being on managing change in the morning, and on research methods in the afternoon. I found the session on change management really interesting. The presentation was interesting but didn’t have much that you couldn’t find easily online. The really interesting bit were the activities we had to work through:

• Stakeholder analysis – identify the stakeholders in your project, taking into account their level of enthusiasm and influence. Plot the stakeholders on a matrix, creating links between them to highlight how you could create opportunities to have influential and enthusiastic stakeholders encourage those who are resistant to your project
• “Elevator speech” – prepare a 2 minute speech that you will give to a stakeholder in your project, highlighting key objectives, significance of the project and requirements. Make sure to get their attention and on your side
• Force analysis – identify forces (factors) that will work for and against the change you propose. And although we didn’t address it today, there’s space for the action one plans to take to either address the forces against, or to take advantage of the forces for your project
• SOCKS analysis – Strengths, Opportunities, Challenges, Knowledge, Stakeholders. Identify different components within each of these factors, as they relate to your project

What I liked about this session was that we were guided through the various components by using our own projects as the framework. This not only allowed us to make progress on our respective projects, but made the content much clearer than if it had only been presented to us.

As far as this afternoon’s research methods session went, we covered focus groups and survey questionnaires, but in a slightly different format. Eight volunteer, participated in a “real” focus group where the discussion was recorded and documented, then transcribed and printed out. Each group was then guided through an analysis of the transcript to identify key themes. Those themes then formed the basis of the questionnaire. This is the first time I’ve seen a qualitative method leading to a more refined quantitative method, and I think it’d be really useful for my own project.

Tomorrow we’ll be using the survey we created today, to generate data that we can analyse. While I really saw the value in today’s session, I’d have loved to have been able to use my own project for the afternoon session, much like we did in the morning session.

The main theme of today was to make sure that we could conceptualise the research and project as 2 components of an integrated work, and to create strong links between the various parts of the study. The aim of the SAFRI programme is to develop leadership skills and research capacity within the domain of medical education in Africa, so the research project is a critical part of the programme. I was surprised to find that even though the emphasis on doing good research was only a recent development within the programme, it already seems to have been tightly integrated.

Most of today was spent writing (laptops allowed) and working closely with our supervisors (each Fellow is assigned a supervisor who helps to guide their project and studies). For anyone who joined this programme thinking it’d be a nice afterthought to add to their CV’s, today would’ve put that idea to rest. It’s intense, and there’s a lot of pressure to produce a good piece of work.

It’s the end of day 2 and I’m exhausted, but happily so.