Ready to Read Instructions

If only qualitative research were
as simple as calling Ikea.

Several years ago I bought a new sewing machine. For years I thought that I hated sewing. It turned out that actually, I had a crappy sewing machine. Who wouldn't hate sewing if the machine jammed all the time? I thought that it was because I didn't know how to sew. Truth was (according to the saleswoman at the Sew and Vac) "You don't want that machine. It's crap." So I bought myself a new sewing machine. The first thing I did when I brought it home was take it out of the box, throw some thread in, and grab some fabric. I glanced at the instruction manual, but was too anxious to get started. For the most part, not reading the manual cover to cover has been okay. I glance at it when I need to, but don't usually use it. This is typically the way I operate in most things. Ikea furniture, for example. I pop it out of the box and get to work assembling. Who needs the instruction manual?!?

Recently, however, my distaste for reading instructions has begun to change. I am taking a qualitative methods course, and much of what I am reading feels so much like an instruction manual. Although the readings technically are not instructions, they do provide protocols and examples, and that's about when my eyes start to glaze over. Yet I am in the process of trying to figure out how to interview people, and I am still tweaking my interview questions because 1) I'm afraid to do this and 2) I really need to read the instruction manual. This is not to say that there is an actual instruction manual for qualitative research. But I've been dissecting much more intentionally the readings I am assigned now, and also going back and re-reading a textbook I have that I used last summer. Who knew, but it's full of useful information! I am still learning by doing most of the time, however for right now, my doing is complemented by reading the instructions.