I am a final-year master’s student in Sociology, and this autumn I had the opportunity to work as a research assistant on a project about cross-cultural collaboration in the supervision of PhD candidates. My involvement has been part of the final phase of a larger research project, RESILIENT, which has been ongoing for six years. RESILIENT is a collaboration between UiA and universities in Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania, aiming to strengthen research and capacity in social work. In the part I participated in, the goal was to learn from experiences related to cross-cultural collaboration in PhD supervision within the RESILIENT project, and to highlight the perspectives of both supervisors and candidates. Here, I share some experiences that I found particularly valuable.
My role in the project was to contribute to data collection, both in planning and implementation. The aim was to gather experiences of cross-cultural collaboration in supervision through a questionnaire consisting of both closed and open-ended questions. I was involved in most stages of this process: designing the questionnaire, distributing and collecting responses, and preparing the data for analysis in statistical software.
One of the areas where I learned the most was in designing the questionnaire. There are many aspects to consider: the balance between open and closed questions, the wording of questions, and, importantly, privacy concerns. It is crucial to formulate questions that provide useful answers without being leading, while also allowing participants to highlight what they find important. Being able to participate in the reflections around these issues was very educational.
I also had responsibility for creating the questionnaire in SurveyXact. This program was new to me, and it was both challenging and exciting to learn. Here I had to be precise, especially since the data needed to be organized in a way that allowed for systematic analysis later, while ensuring respondent anonymity.
Due to privacy and anonymity considerations, I was also responsible for distributing the questionnaire to participants. This meant acting as the main contact person, which involved quite a bit of correspondence, partly due to technical issues with the questionnaire. I also experienced the challenge of reminding people to respond without being too insistent. This was both interesting and educational. Furthermore, I was responsible for preparing the data for analysis in SPSS, something I had never done before, but which was fun to learn.
Overall, this project has been incredibly rewarding. I have gained valuable insight into the planning and execution of data collection, and it has become clear to me how many considerations must be taken, both in terms of design and ethics, as well as dealing with unforeseen factors such as technical problems. I have greatly benefited from being part of this project.