big "oops" ...

today i realized something that i should have realized A MONTH AGO! DAMMIT! i am pathetic! when i first started looking for participating schools, people started to tell me that they couldn't take class time to distribute the questionnaires and so they would do it outside of class time. things went so quickly that i said ok... happy that they would still consider participating... and i forgot one BIG BIG BIG thing: half of my questionnaire is about ONE SPECIFIC ESL TEACHER! how would the students know which teacher i'm talking about if they are not doing this in a specific class???????

it's hard to evaluate the damage, right now, but i'd think that about 1/3 of the schools, maybe 1/2, told me they'd do it outside of class time. it's fine if they distribute the questionnaire at the end of one class and then collect them in that same class the following day, but being in the hallway and asking for people to participate if they want is just not going to work! so now i have to write 20 emails to people i have already bothered forever... and i am losing about 1/3 of my participants... DAMMIT!!!!! how could i not think of that earlier???

it hit me today while i was talking to someone. she kept telling me that they couldn't do it at the beginning of the semester because it was too busy but i told her it was the point of the study, then she told me they couldn't do it this, or that, and finally she told me they wouldn't do it in class... and it hit me: it's not going to work! i told her ok, because i hadn't realized the implication of the problem yet. then i started thinking and considered removing half of my questions, the section about specific teachers.... but a big hypothesis of my study is that time will make a difference in the students' answers, and another big hypothesis is that what the students BELIEVE and what they actually DO is different. they may THINK that they only want native english speakers but they might love their current nonnative teacher. so there, i can't erase half of my project. i will have to write to everyone and appologize and explain. all teachers can still participate. i guess i've just been wasting a lot of time with those irb proposals if students don't participate...

other bad news: i've spent $40 on stamps for 10 return envelops that can contain 10-15 questionnaires!

the good news of the day is that umbc, which i love even more now, has agreed to participate not only in the pilot but also in the real study in the fall! wouah! and i talked to the director and explained the problem to him and he understands, he'll do it in class with the students! and they have a pretty large program. that'll be maybe 80 students, which is good! thank goodness.

other good news: i've started the outline of the dissertation! yeah!!!! it's real, it's coming, it's here!

ok, tomorrow: call all those schools again and explain and argue and beg and pray and hope...