Episode 31: Episode 31. QR SIG Program Preview - AERA 2022

Qualitative Conversations

In this episode, Jessica Van Cleave (QR SIG Chair), Alexandra Panos (Program Co-chair), and Cassie Quigley (Program Co-Chair) preview the Qualitative Research SIG's program for the AERA 2022 conference. They share about the business meeting, the conference hybrid format, tips for having a successful conference, and much more. Below are helpful conference links and the transcript of the conversation.
QR SIG AERA 2022 Program in Google Doc form: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tP3sxCO91cc-qGYpw876t8adf1L_K1fy0cA2WsrP0DA/edit
AERA video training for presenters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKfPWsLcI0c
Jessica Van Cleave 0:20
Welcome to qualitative conversations the podcast of the qualitative research Special Interest Group at AERA. I'm Jessica Van Cleave, the chair of the QR SIG, and I'm happy to be joined today by Cassie Quigley and Alex Panos, our program co-chairs. In this episode, we preview the QR SIG's program for the 2022 AERA annual meeting, discuss what members can expect from the hybrid format, and highlight opportunities to connect for QRC graduate students and members.
Dr. Cassie Quigley is an associate professor of science education and Chair in the Department of teaching, learning and leading at the School of Education at the University of Pittsburgh. She received her doctorate doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction at Indiana University in 2010. Dr. Quigley's his expertise in qualitative research is focused on methodologies that center the participants such as community based methodologies, using data collection methods such as photo methods. In the past 11 years, she has published over 50 articles and book chapters focused on these methods, including in journals such as the International Journal of qualitative studies and education, qualitative inquiry, the Journal of mixed methods research. She also co authored a book on STEAM education titled An educators guide to STEAM education, which is published by teachers college press. She has presented her qualitative work at numerous conferences both nationally and internationally. Additionally, she serves as a program co chair of the American Educational Research Association's Qualitative Research Special Interest Group. She teaches qualitative research methodology courses on topics such as participatory action, research, validity and reliability for qualitative work and ethics around educational research. Cassie is completing her three year term as program co chair this year, and she's done an incredible job during this unusual and ever changing time for eight era and the annual meeting. I'm so grateful for her service and dedication and putting together meaningful programs over the past three years and she will be missed on the executive committee.
Alexandra Panos is an assistant professor of literacy studies and affiliate faculty and measurement and research in the College of Education at the University of South Florida. She earned her doctorate in literacy, language and culture education with a minor in inquiry methodology at Indiana University Bloomington in 2018. Dr. Panos takes an interdisciplinary stance in her work as a critical qualitative methodologist and grounds her theoretical methodological and empirical work. In her substantive field of literacy studies. She has published numerous articles and book chapters that focus on the critical environmental and spatial dimensions of qualitative methodologies of literacy studies. Most recently, she has served as senior guest editor on a special issue focusing on the spatial dimensions have taken for granted qualitative research practices related to masking and anonymization published in the International Journal of qualitative studies and education. We are fortunate to have Alex remain as a program co chair one more year to complete her three year term after the 2023 annual meeting.
So what we wanted to start by talking about is the fact that the annual meeting this year is hybrid. And this is the first time that AERA has has held the meeting in hybrid format. So how has that impacted the program? And what can attendees expect? Um, overall, that means that some of our sessions are going to be in person, and some of them are going to be virtual. And the virtual sessions are going to be accessible through Passable, which is the platform that Ara has hired this year and contracted with to provide the virtual conference experience. The in person sessions are going to look just like in person sessions have always looked at AERA. And so members can anticipate either attending sessions if they have registered for the in person or place based meeting, or I'm logging on to the Passable platform and attending via zoom, kind of similar platform. It's kind of zoom embedded within passable in order to access the virtual sessions. And then as happened last year, poster presentations are going to be provided in the virtual gallery that will be accessible both through the passable platform and the eight year website in our virtual gallery.
Alexandra Panos 4:41
One thing to add to that, Jessica, sorry, I cut you off. I was just going to add that the play space participants can access the virtual platform space so for them it really is hybrid. But if you're a virtual, you can't access all playspace sessions. There are some that will be made available and streamed live through passable as well.
Jessica Van Cleave 5:08
That's right, Alex. Yeah. So So depending on how you register, you're going to have access to different types of sessions. If you are in the playspace session, you'll have access to all of the various sessions. So I'm Cassie, can you give us an overview of the QR sync program? How many sessions there are and what kind of topics that attendees can expect to find?
Cassie Quigley 5:30
Yeah, absolutely. We're really excited. And thank you all for your, you know, your work in the QR SIG. We will have seven in person paper or symposium sessions, we will have four virtual sessions that are paper or symposium sessions, one virtual business meeting, so hope to see you there and one in person mentoring session. So for the mentoring session, a folks who are participating have already received that information. And this is a closed session. But if you're interested in learning more, or joining this session next year, this is an annual event and you can contact them mentoring committee chair, Kelly Guyette. We have other exciting opportunities for mentorship as well, including mentor mentee office hours, we're so fortunate to have so many committed mentors, we thank them for their time and service to the QR SIG. And, Alex, do you want to just talk to us a little bit about the process for reviewing and accepting submissions? And what kind of things we tend to take into account as we're doing this work?
Alexandra Panos 6:38
Yeah, definitely. Cuz he, um, so every year, the call goes out after after the conference. And then as program coaches, we wait for submissions, and look forward to receiving them. When we get submissions through the platform. We review each submission to be sure that they're complete, that they are a good fit for our SIG that there aren't any anonymization issues with those. And then we go on to invite reviewers who have expertise in the area of each proposal. So we've read each proposal, we invite reviewers to join us and thinking about those and give us their expert feedback. This is one of the reasons why we so value our SIG member reviewers, you are so essential to this process. I don't think Cassie and I could explain that enough. If you want to review in the future. Just a quick note, it's really helpful to indicate your areas of expertise using the keyword feature when you sign up to review. Because after we get the submissions when we review them, we make matches based on folks expertise. And once those reviews are returned, after a lot of hard work by reviewers, we carefully go through them looking at both the quantitative and qualitative feedback that each reviewer provides to determine which papers to accept. This year, we had fewer places, fewer allocated sessions and papers than we have in past year. So we definitely had to make a lot of difficult decisions. But as we process all the information we have available, we really take into account the reviews of these of the experts we invite to join us in this process, which includes three reviewers and one graduate student reviewer. And another thing about the system: how we access things. So we work on that back end system of AERA, which please sign up to review next year using that system. But it's a little different than the actual access to the conference system. So Jessica, I know you've been attending a lot of trainings on this. I wonder if you can share a little bit about how members can access the sessions that they want to attend through the political platform.
Jessica Van Cleave 8:57
Yeah, absolutely. Alex, thank you. So if you are in San Diego, then the way that you attend sessions that are placed based in San Diego is you just go to them. So that is the easy part. Right? That's what we're used to doing. That is what's familiar back in the olden days of 2019. That is how we used to attend AERA, that option is still available and it's fantastic. So, if you have registered for the place based session, then that is how you will attend in person sessions. Now if you are a virtual registrant, you cannot attend to those playspace sessions. AERA is not planning to stream or record place-based sessions except for a select few as Alex mentioned earlier, like the Presidential sessions and things like that. Otherwise, the in person face to face playspace sessions are only accessible by those who are in San Diego attending the conference. If you are in San Diego, you can also attend the virtual sessions are obviously if you're a virtual registered, then you'll be attending those virtual sessions as well or presenting in that platform. And the way that you will access those sessions is through the passable platform. So, invitations we have been told should be going out the week of March 28. Once you get an invitation to the passable platform, you will create a profile. And from that platform, you'll be able to view your own presentations, add items to your schedule and create your your serve AERA personalized experience through that platform. You must register for the meeting to gain access either as a presenter or as a participant, we've been told that there are some things in place that make it so that those virtual sessions can only be accessed through the platform. And then within the platform, they host a zoom. So that will look familiar. Accessing virtual sessions will look like the kinds of virtual sessions we've been accessing and hosting ourselves for the last couple of years. So all of the the interfaces interactions, and what it looks like will be very familiar to us. And that same opportunity to share your screen and use presentation tools and software that you can use in zoom will be available through passable. So AERA has a lot of additional information, as well as specific trainings both for presenters and exhibitors and chairs that can be found on their website. And we'll include some links in the description to the podcast so that you can access those directly. If you have some, some specific questions, or you want to go through the process and see what it looks like prior to getting your invitation. AERA has also told us that based on those trainings and the questions that were asked during the sessions, they're putting together an FAQ to support members in accessing. And again, virtual sessions can be accessed by registrants who are placed based or virtual. And except for key sessions in person sessions can only be accessed for members who are registered for the in person meeting and they won't be streamed. So that's that's sort of how we can get there. We'll be finding out more information. And once the platform launches, and we receive those invitations, we'll be working on putting together some some access and information for our members to that we'll be sending out through the listserv. So I'm one of the things that we do at the annual meeting, in addition to our content sessions, is our business meeting. Cassie, can you talk to us a little bit about what members can expect if they attend the business meeting?
Amy Stich 12:42
Yeah, we're really excited for the business meeting. And that business meetings on Saturday, April 23, and it will begin at 6pm. Pacific Time, the agenda will include a welcome from our president and then moving on to acknowledgement for for the work. And then we move into some committee and activity reports from our various committees, which is just a really nice way to kind of learn more about the QR SIG. And also here, what we've been doing over the last year. Then we have the Outstanding Dissertation reward award. And then the Egon G Guba. Award, we will announce as well. And we will end right around seven just after 7pm Pacific Time, you do not need to register for the business meeting. It is open to all members. And this will be a virtual event which so then it's open to both people who are in person in San Diego and have registered for the virtual events. So we're really looking forward to seeing you all there. It's a wonderful event to learn ways to get involved. And also just learn more about the work that we've been doing over the last year. So we're really looking forward to seeing you all there. Um, Alex, what suggestions do you have for members who might be curious about ways to navigate AERA program and take advantage of our exciting sessions and I'm thinking particularly if I'm a new member to the QR SIG, or this is the first time I'm attending AERA can be a little overwhelming.
Unknown Speaker 14:22
Oh my goodness. Yes, Ara is a very large space with more sessions than it's possible to imagine sometimes it feels like so one of the ways that's really helpful, and why I love being a member of the QR SIG or other units in AERA is that it can create. If you take a lens of a sig or a division as a unit. To navigate AERA you have an ability to create a more personalized program based on your areas of interest and expertise. The kinds of scholarly conversations you want to be a part of. So when you're in the, the program itself, when you log into all academic or into the patible program, there should be searchable tools for you. So you can search by someone's name, like you really want to see a specific scholar and you want to talk to that person. But you can also search by unit. And when you search by unit, you have opportunities to search by SIG or by division. And so we of course, recommend that you go check out the QR SIG, and its program but you can also search and other units. So for us qualitative, folks, division D is another wonderful place to look because those are also all methodology conversations over there. And they have lots of qualitative conversations to be had there. So I just always recommend that you really think about the scholarly conversations you want to be a part of, and you find ways to streamline your exploration in in that way. But I think becoming a member of a SIG means that you are already like kind of like aware of things that are happening and you are trying to be a part of that scholarly conversation in a particular area, such as our area of qualitative research. So Jessica, will you share a little bit about how folks might join us in the QR SIG?
Jessica Van Cleave 16:29
Absolutely, yeah. So to become a member of the QR SIG, and obviously, we hope all of our listeners are either existing members or will soon join us. When you get your Ara member membership or renew, you have the opportunity to select divisions and sigs that you want to be a part of. So if you go to that very, very, very long listing of SIGs and scroll down to Q and select qualitative research special interest group, you're a member. So you add that at the time of your initial membership or at the time of your renewal. And you can actually go back and add memberships to divisions and SIGs. If later on you decide that this is really a community of scholars that you want to be a part of, you don't have to wait until the next year you can join the QR SIG or any SIG at any time. For us and the QR SIG. We have an active listserv. So one of the member, one of the benefits of becoming a member is that you will receive emails periodic periodically that are specific to our membership. Those kinds of emails to the listserv include opportunities for connecting with other members. They include mentorship opportunities, publication opportunities, workshop, workshops, ideas, or invitations to submit to our newsletter and other kinds of things, calls for special issues related to qualitative research. We often have job opportunities, and interesting ways to connect and really become part of our community to join le