{"id":882,"date":"2012-02-21T22:10:56","date_gmt":"2012-02-21T22:10:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.therightbrainstudio.com\/?p=882"},"modified":"2012-02-21T22:10:56","modified_gmt":"2012-02-21T22:10:56","slug":"better-research-through-car-pooling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.therightbrainstudio.com\/blog\/better-research-through-car-pooling\/","title":{"rendered":"Better Research Through Car Pooling"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/h2>\n

by Jeff Hirsch<\/h2>\n

I\u2019m not sure of the inspiration, but the other day I flashed back to when my kids were younger, thinking about all that driving I used to do to and from school, soccer, play dates, ballet, birthday parties, music lessons and everywhere else.<\/p>\n

There was plenty of good conversation when I was with each of them one-on-one, but I found that if I really wanted to find out what was going on with my kids, all I had to do was put them in a car with one or two of their good friends, drive and listen.<\/p>\n

Despite Dad in the front seat, they escaped into their own backseat world, deeply engaged in conversation, oblivious to their surroundings. Was it because they trusted me so much in front of their friends? Hardly. If I dared an attempt to join the conversation, my older daughter, in particular, would be quick to tell me how much I was embarrassing her. Then, when left alone again, they would quickly go back to talking to each other about feelings and experiences they would never relate to me if I had asked about them directly.<\/p>\n

I find precisely the same phenomenon to hold true in qualitative research. Facilitators can ask questions directly, but we\u2019ll likely get the least painful and thought inducing answers the first time around. We can probe and probe and maybe get a bit further, but the question and answer format has its limitations.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow was school today?\u201d \u201cFine.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Right Brain Studio has had great success in one-on-one settings leveraging therapy-like methods and laddering techniques (it\u2019s easier with strangers than your own kids), but group dynamics are different. Here, it\u2019s best to emulate the car pool. Get out of the way and let them talk.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just creative exercises that will get them talking, oblivious to the fact that they\u2019re all strangers and there\u2019s a moderator with a hidden or not so hidden agenda in the room. Group<\/em> exercises are the key, shared experiences that get them talking and working with each other.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure I\u2019m not the only parent (the infamous Tiger Mom aside) who sometimes wanted to \u201ccontrol\u201d his kids at times. Of course we want them to \u201cbe themselves,\u201d but at the same time, we want to teach them good manners and respect for others. In research, we don\u2019t want to teach our respondents anything. It\u2019s quite the other way around. However, like meddling, controlling overly involved parents, exerting too much \u201ccontrol\u201d over respondents and the research process can serve to encourage dysfunction, inhibit respondents and quash honest communication.<\/p>\n

Better to let things flow. The real goal of any facilitator is to be the proverbial \u201cfly on the wall.\u201d If they don\u2019t even think about you being there, your chances of listening in on some really meaningful conversation rise significantly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Jeff Hirsch I\u2019m not sure of the inspiration, but the other day I flashed back to when my kids […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12611,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therightbrainstudio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therightbrainstudio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therightbrainstudio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therightbrainstudio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therightbrainstudio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.therightbrainstudio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therightbrainstudio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therightbrainstudio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therightbrainstudio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therightbrainstudio.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}