Synchronous online education occurs when the students and faculty member are in different locations geographically and interaction occurs simultaneously through the internet at scheduled times. In this study I investigated the phenomenon of using synchronous online classes blended with a face-to-face classroom to complete the freshman year of college. The essence of the experience emerged around the concept of ambiguity, specifically in regard to group membership, functionality of technology, and place. This understanding of ambiguity provides a framework upon which to design practices for engaging such distance students and best promoting their learning.

Purpose Due to the limitations to the purpose and practice of both phenomenological and duoethnographic research methodologies, the purpose of this paper is to propose phenomenological polyethnography as a hybrid qualitative methodology, which would guide skilled researchers in conducting phenomenological exploration of an emergent experience as insiders. Design/methodology/approach This study is an applied a hybridization approach to phenomenology and duoethnography as two distinct qualitative research traditions. Findings Employing a poststructuralist perspective, researcher-participants with relevant difference co-investigate a phenomenological question together. Borrowing elements from both hermeneutic phenomenology and duoethnography, this methodology involves the consideration of a phenomenon, the use of authors with relevant difference who have both special insight into that phenomenon as participants and skill as qualitative researchers, the intentional collection of prereflective data while all researcher-participants are experiencing the phenomenon or immediately after, the subsequent reflection upon and interpretation of the phenomenon as it was similarly and differently experienced by the researcher-participants, and the description of both the essence and meaning of the phenomenon. Research limitations/implications This new, hybrid qualitative methodology will enable researchers to more efficiently analyze and disseminate the research of insider knowledge on emergent phenomena in higher education and other settings. Originality/value As a new methodology, it may be used to investigate events and provide rich, thick description in a way not before seen.

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There is a lack of research on military veterans in higher education that captures the issues from an insider’s perspective. To that end, I sought to reflect upon my own experiences with higher education as military veteran—from a budding recruit all the way through to now being an administrator and faculty member. I utilized a layered-account autoethnographic approach (Ronai, 1995) to interrogate my multiple perspectives that developed over time on veterans’ issues in higher education. I found that the GI Bill—the modern iteration of the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of 1944—was a powerful motivator both in starting my military career and continuing my studies; my thinking on transfer credits from the Joint Service Transcript evolved from seeing them as an entitlement to lacking rigor. I felt out of place as I left the military and attended a traditional university campus, and then I sought out the faculty members who reminded me of the no-nonsense military from which I had departed. My experiences in the military continually guided my behavior as a student and that of other student veterans I observed, thus, I recommend that institutions glean lessons from these experiences to better serve the unique demographic presented by the growing population of student veterans.

Federal policy has a profound impact on the lived experiences of American military veterans. Political parties may have varied agendas to serve their own ends, but the legislation that emerges from them guides and funds the medical care, educational benefits, and other arenas of veterans' lives. Thus, studying federal veterans' policy is akin to studying a creek by going to the spring where it starts. Policy, at that point of origin, guides the content, direction, and pace of everything downstream. Congress and U.S. Veterans: From the GI Bill to the VA Crisis by Lindsey Cormack, contains a thorough examination of federal veterans' policy from 2009 to 2017. Cormack argues that any consideration of politics in modern America must be done with heavy filtration, cutting through deliberate ambiguities and electioneering in the messaging. Veterans' issues are no different. Indeed, the two-party system has created an apparent divergence in perception-Republicans communicating themselves as the party for veterans, while the Democrats introduced 60% of the veteran-related legislation in Congress during the years of the study. Thus, she says, the apparent discrepancy between public perception and Congressional activity is important to explore in order to check perceptions with reality and develop a coherent, effective path forward for veterans' policy. The author, Lindsey Cormack, is an assistant professor of political science and director of the Diplomacy Lab at the Stevens Institute of Technology. Her expertise exists in the communication of policy from the legislative branch of government, and she used that expertise as a tool to investigate what she described as the "oddities around veterans' politics and policies in the United States" (p. ix). As she has no apparent prior experience with the research of, or practice with veterans, her expertise relevant to this book rests in the study of governmental communication, which served as a vehicle for the content here on veterans. Due to the small body of literature on veterans' issues from the political science perspective, Cormack sought to consider the background of veterans' issues in American politics, analyze legislators' approaches to veterans' issues, and identify the interplay of party politics with the address of veterans' issues in Congress. The target audience for the work was construed in the broadest sense-the public and policymakers. Integrating the purpose with the audience, Cormack wrote the book to help inform the public on policy related to veterans' issues in order to improve the development and implementation of future policy. The book is structured into four sections: historical review of veterans' policy and approaches to policy, ongoing efforts to change veterans' policy, proposal and analysis of the author's Theory of Lip Service versus Legwork, and an examination of case studies illustrating the theory. In her survey of federal veterans' policy, Cormack noted the importance of veterans' policy, given that veterans uncommonly have bipartisan support ...