IRBs and Other Oddities

So....

The IRB application.

I looked at that thing with utter incomprehension for days. A research study was additional new territory for me, and I really needed to be clear about exactly how my study would be designed. My UB program had been in a state of transition for a year or so, moving over to more traditional research-based studies (prior to this, research had been primarily focused on user research), and there was really no formal support for this yet. I was at the stage in my studies where coursework was done, and I had no electives left to add in a course in research methods. I got up to speed through a combination of GLS's Doctoral Consortium, whose members offered invaluable advice; the brilliant and infinitely patient Ed Dieterle, who was once a Bridging the Watershed teacher/partner before he went off to do great things at the Harvard Graduate School of Education; and some really good books, including,

Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory, Strauss and Corbin
Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches, John Creswell
Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches, John Creswell

and probably best of all,

Qualitative Research Design, An Interactive Approach, Joseph Maxwell

With all these resources, I was able to put together a study, based in grounded theory, comprised of teacher pre- and post-questionnaires; three sets of interviews, the first to establish prior experiences, the second to establish expectations, and the third to collect reflections; and finally audio recordings of the actual day of play testing. When all these interviews and audio recordings are transcribed and coded (still ongoing), then hopefully I will be able to glean the answer to, or at least a suggestion of, my primary research question:

How do players make meaning?