Evaluation

I very much enjoyed the process of setting up a blog – something I had no experience in – and doing the research project. Creating a slideshow and adding links to the blog was a bit of a challenge at first. I am still fairly distrustful of the safety of the internet, and the idea of my photos and thoughts, ideas and words being ‘out there’ somewhere for anyone to access is still slightly unsettling. Although I have no reason to feel that way: there is nothing really personal in them, and who would in the slightest be interested anyway? The main reasons for this worry are perhaps the fear of identity theft which has been drummed into me perhaps a bit too much, together with the fact that I consider my thoughts private – someone might actually think I’m thinking nonsense! Overcoming these first hurdles were possibly the worst. This semester has been a great learning curve on what’s all out there in the internet world. Evernote and Google documents will most certainly be used much more regularly from now on.

The easiest part was deciding what to do my research project on and taking photos. It was the perfect excuse to go out for long walks or visiting friends without feeling guilty that I was not studying. Applying Semiotical analysis on the images was easy too, as I thoroughly enjoyed the module ‘Images of Scotland’ and this process appeared to be second nature. Having an eye for detail is certainly helpful too. I found it more challenging to apply Grounded Theory on the images and at first felt not entirely sure I was successful in doing so. The attempts were most certainly there, but perhaps I did not practice this technique as effectively as I could have done. The main issue was that thoughts and ideas appeared randomly, and although looking at new benches confirmed some ideas, they also made me question other aspects, including the main question of discourse: what does the deceased’s family want to communicate to the rest of society, what are the ideas and attitudes behind these benches? In some cases this was very clear, however I feel that for the majority of the time that my interpretations are possible just that: my interpretations and theories. I found it difficult to develop ideas into theory, and worried about the quality of the analysis. The data is certainly reliable and valid, but were my interpretations correct? Also, for a long time I was unsure about how to exactly present the data and analysis. However once I had entered all my thougths in the table, printed it off and got the scissors and some colourful pens out, everything suddenly made a lot more sense. It was easy to put the benches in 'boxes', and so order and reorder theories and ideas after collection, and finally select the a few sound theories to focus on.

In conclusion, this module has been very interesting and rewarding. It might even be a nice idea to continue the memorial benches project. Investigation of the theories in and perception of Image-based Research, together with undertaking a research project has provided me with the skill and confidence to analyse visual data in research much more effectively, and I look forward to doing so again in the future.