Interviewing and observing

I think that the interviewing assignment was pretty enlightening for me. First, I really enjoyed talking to the student. She was very helpful and interested in helping me fulfill my assignment. I also think that while this experience was helpful in practicing for being out in the field, my interviews with the Mexicans in actual rural Mexico will be a lot different. First of all, they will not be students who understand the importance of allowing another student to fulfill an assignment. Also they will not speak English and even though I spoke with her somewhat in Spanish, it was easy to fall back on English. With that also in mind- we were somewhat rushed. while I was able to put in the 45 minutes, we both had things that we needed to go do. So I hope that while I'm in the field time will be my friend. There will be more time to sit and talk to people, in a less formal way. There will be more time for me to be able to express myself in Spanish. In addition, I am kind of glad that my project relies a lot on quantitative data. (Although I also feel that this in itself will come with a different set of challenges.) Interviewing and remembering what the people say, asking the right questions, and getting the types of answers that you are looking for is indeed very hard. I will still need to informally interview people in order to get a feel of the activity levels and culture aspects that may possibly affect core stability, but I am glad that it is not the only data that I am relying on.
In addition, I want to comment briefly on the interview with my Mexican friend. She seemed to be in the opinion that children in Mexico now are not participating in the same activities as she did when she was a child. She feels that the children are less active. This is more evidence that suggests that there may not be a difference between American children and Mexican children in terms of core stability. My interviewee grew up in a larger city on the coast of Mexico and so her observations may not be the same as what I will see in the small rural areas that I am going. I guess that I will see when I get there.
Lastly, I want to briefly report on the meeting that I had with Dr. Mitchell. It was very informative and as helped me see a little bit more what I need to focus on. First, she told me that they changed to fitness tests that we will be administering. I will have to be trained in how to give these tests and to know what to look for. I'm excited because they seem to have it worked out fairly well. Also, she said that they are working on a movie that will demonstrate the tests. I will need to get it dubbed over in Spanish. I'm not sure how easy or difficult it will be to show a dvd in Mexico. It's something that I will need to look into. Dr. Mitchell also talked to me about the IRB approval which they have already started drafting. And so while that is nearing completion, I also need to have the forms etc translated into Spanish. So I will begin working on that fairly soon.
So right now, I'm making headway but I still have a long way to go.