I wasn’t fully versed on how Focus Groups differ from Interviews, and like many other novice qualitative researchers I believed that Focus Groups were more in line with group interviews. I was excited to learn that Focus Groups could include a group task or provocation.

I truly enjoyed the breakout task this week. Working together to design our Focus Group on Indigenous Languages and Cultures was a lot of fun! It was a great prompt to work with as it keeps the action of the Truth and Reconciliation Act at the forefront of educator minds. Our group was pleased with the final prompt for our group: “What is one thing you have learned about the preservation of Indigenous language and culture that you can take away from tonight and use in your classroom this week?” This would allow the researcher to collect the summaries or highlights from participants but would also honour the importance of the topic, and potentially result in action.

Going over the final assignment details this week made me excited to begin drafting some details for my research proposals. I still feel quite anxious about my theoretical framework, but I appreciated Dr. Kitchenham’s inclusion of his slide deck on paradigms. I revisited some of my earlier readings, and I know that my ontological and epistemological beliefs are grounded in Interpretivism. However, I am deeply inspired by Freirian beliefs and the point of my research is to question what could be, which aligns better with Critical Theory. With my lack of research experience, I think that I would be wisest to stick within the Interpretivist paradigm, as I do not yet understand how to temper my bias, which would be ignited by Critical Theory. I must keep reminding myself that this is a dissertation and it follows a scripted format.