I’ve been reflecting a lot on my thesis lately for a variety of reasons. Putting this website together, constantly looking at it on my resume, speaking about it at Dr. Poelvoorde’s funeral…. All of them inspired me to think on what the top three things I would change if I had the chance to do it again.
- I’d have multiple people look at the coding.
Whether something is positive or negative is definitely a judgement call, and while I did talk to my advisor about some data points, having two other people also coding the information might have changed the results. We’ve all got internal bias and while I tried to set mine aside while doing the coding, I have wondered if I was successful. - I’d have tried harder to go with my idea of showing Rogue One to people who had never seen Star Wars.
Originally, I wanted to show the film to people who hadn’t seen any of the others and then interview them before and afterwards to compare their thoughts on the terms and themes I was studying. The main reason I didn’t go this route was because the movie was still in theaters, but there were also concerns I wouldn’t be able to find people who hadn’t seen the movies. - I would have collected where people found the survey
My thesis was posted all over the internet and I think it might have been interesting to see at how the source played into the way the questions were answered. For example, someone who found it on r/samplesize, where people regularly take academic surveys, is going to have a different viewpoint than someone who found it on r/dnd. While I’m not sure this would have made it into the final paper, it would have been an absolutely fantastic fun fact for presentations.
Brandy Blanton, MLittt 