Is microanalysis a good fit for me?

Just as with any adventure, it’s worth considering not just whether the particular destination is interesting, but what kind of investment it will take to get there. I might think it would be cool to go on a bike tour with friends in Provence. And if I want to make that dream reality, I might consider the concrete details:

  • intense training for months
  • planning routes
  • sketching out contingencies
  • packing as lightly as possible

If I am extremely attached to biking through fields of lavender in bloom, I might consider the timing carefully. Is it a journey I should do alone, or do I go with friends? Or people I don’t know yet in a tour group?

Similarly, if one is considering a journey using microanalysis, one should think about practicalities and sensibilities.

Practical considerations for doing microanalysis

  • It will take time. Creating definitions and procedures tailored to your project will always take more time than using an established coding system. This website is an effort to reduce time by providing advice and resources, so you aren’t having to figure out the process on your own.
  • An institutional affiliation may be important. If you are planning on conducting and publishing research, ethics and data protection plans must be arranged and documented before collecting data, and these may be challenging without institutional support. An additional part of the institutional support is the technical infrastructure that can ensure secure storage of data aligned with ethics approval. (If you are doing microanalysis for your own or others professional development, the rules may be different. This is something to check in the country you live in.)
  • A team is advisable. This isn’t an ideal method for one person to do alone, it usually requires some degree of collaboration between clinicians, educators, and researchers. (See interdisciplinary collaboration.) It’s also helpful if you can meet with others who are doing some sort of interaction analysis.
  • You’ll need some good technical equipment. Recording the interactions will require good video and audio equipment. We recommend researching what’s available now, as anything suggested here is likely already out of date. Analysis software may be useful as well- many of us have favoured ELAN, which is freely available, updated regularly, and designed for inductive and deductive video analysis. However, it sometimes does not work well with our secure storage solutions. In this case, many of us use video and put our transcript in an excel file, using excel to record analytical decisions. (See setting up a data file)  

Personal considerations: Is it a good fit for me?

Just as a trip is more than the moments spent at an idealized destination, a research project is more than published papers or a completed PhD project. Both can take years to accomplish, and rather than just tolerating all that preparation to get to the finish line, perhaps it would be better to consider whether you might genuinely enjoy it!

If you have heard a bit about microanalysis and are curious about whether you want to try it, here’s a check list of qualities my colleagues and I prepared, based on our experiences. (You may notice that many of these qualities are required for doing research of any kind—and some are particular to microanalysis.)

You don’t need to shout, “hell yeah!!” to each one, but it’s better if you lean a bit towards yes rather than no:

  • I’m intensely curious about what’s happening during clinical conversations. I am just as interested in learning more about communication as I am in answering my particular research questions. 
  • I’d love to focus my curiosity on something that can provide clinically-relevant insights. 
  • I am attracted more to “how” and “what” questions, rather than “why”. When I read about the microanalytic lens, it makes me a little more curious rather than a little less.
  • I find it fun to be in chaos and confusion for a while, trying different things to see if they work, and taking time to figure things out (like puzzles, playing with children, creating music).
  • I’m open to letting go of my pre-conceived notions of what is going on in these conversations and am curious to see whether the video-recording shows me something unexpected. I am happy to have my assumptions challenged. 
  • I’m open to adjusting the plan in pursuit of doing something well and thoroughly.
  • I geek out on details and systematicity and find complexity interesting.
  • I find that other people’s points of view sparks my curiosity. When their perspective is different than mine, I find it fun to learn more about it.