Powered By Blogger

Thursday, June 21, 2012

When I think of research.....



            As I reflect on the past eight weeks, I have come to realize I am in a different place than I was at the onset of this course. I began with many feelings of apprehension since my experience and education related to research of any sort was very limited.  The terminology, methods and principles all seemed so complex.  Each week as we added a new element to our simulation and read more to understand the terms and process, I gained a little more confidence.  

            My “fear” of studying research has been addressed somewhat.  I feel that I have gained knowledge in all areas including the terms, the process and how to be sure that any research I would consider conducting is done keeping in mind the importance being equitable.

I also learned about being conscious of the feasibility of a topic I would study. Initially, my question was too broad and had too many elements to consider investigating.  Through the weekly assignments, I learned to narrow the scope.  This was my biggest challenge as I thought about a question.  I knew what I wanted to accomplish but not exactly how to begin.   
            For me, the notion of equity was new to me as it is related to research. I continue to think about how important this is. Going forward, it will always be a consideration in my work. I will also consider using the process we learned to conduct actual research related to my various aspects of my work. I don’t think I would have considered this prior to taking this course.  All in all, it has been an interesting and worthwhile experience

4 comments:

  1. Judi,
    I also had trouble narrowing down the question. It was almost as if we had to work backwards from the answer to figure out the question. Thank you for your insights throughout the course.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Judi,
    I have to agree with you too, about narrowing down our topics and writing the research question. That was a difficult task as I changed mine several times. I do not fear research as much as I did before. I know a little more in regards to what I am looking for and if the research design has followed the paradigms it should. Good luck in the next class. Maybe I will see you?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Judi,

    It was great to learn along with you during this course. I struggled quite a bit with narrowing my topic of research. I seem to always want to get the most from a project or study and so I try to encompass it all. I have learned that I will get the optimum information from narrowing my question/topic.
    Hope we can continue to learn together in future courses.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Judith,
    I did not have much knowledge of research either, but as you mentioned, I was able to feel that I was gaining a new topic to my knowledge every week. This was an encouragement for me.
    For this course, I needed peers’ posts to help my understanding more than in previous courses. Your posts for the blog and the discussion boards helped me a lot. Thank you very much!

    Aya

    ReplyDelete