Sunday 29 September 2013

Feedback on inquiry

I looked back at Rosemary's feedback for my inquiry earlier on in the month and two main areas for improvement were (1) literature reviews and (2) citing properly.
I have since taken steps to practice better citation skills, in blogs and when making notes on literature, so that I don't fall down again on this area. I have also been using a wonderful tool, suggested by Hannah Stewart, that helps with the different forms of citing, for example, books, websites, journals, etc. It can be found here:
http://www.citethisforme.com/

As far as literature reviewing skills, I think that part of the problem with my inquiry proposal was that I didn't correctly understand what was required and so, instead of reviewing the literature in the proposal, I simply listed the books that had either been, or were likely to be, useful in designing the proposal and the research itself.
I hope that, from now on, I can become more adept at the critical aspect of reviewing literature, in particular, with regard to it's use in my research.
A quick blog entitled 'Light bulb!' hopefully shows that I am, in fact, able to assess literature as to it's relevance and importance to my subject area.

I am, at the moment, feeling on track with other aspects of my inquiry; data is currently being created by participants - next week will be the end of the four weeks set aside for this - and I am about to start organising the interviews for the fifth and sixth weeks, which will take me up to roughly the half term (depending on the availability of students) as planned in my proposal.

I am still finding new insights into my topic area of motivation, and hope to continue reading and researching literature right up until I have collected in, catalogued, and transcribed all data. This will then give me a more secure starting point for my data analysis.
This inquiry will not follow a definite, planned path, as I cannot predict what data I will have after the six week period is up. For this reason, although I would like to start putting in place definite ways of analysing and/or cataloguing I realise that this is fruitless until I have the physical data in front of me; I have no concrete idea what my research will find, nor what outcome(s) I will be able to draw, so I will just continue to become more widely read rather than focus in too early.

One discovery I made recently (Reeve, 2005) identifies an existing research project about motivation that also used diaries to gather data and I hope to track this down soon.

S

 

2 comments:

  1. Hi Sarah,

    I can agree with you on citing and referencing your work. I tend to lose track of where I get bits from so have also started making immediate references in my blogs so that when I come back to them at a future date, I know exactly where to look!

    I am glad that you are on track and already doing plenty of reading and research. Although your inquiry does not have a definite plan - which I can understand, I assume you have an ideal time scale in place? Or what you hoped to have achieved by a certain point?

    I seem to have given myself quite a hectic plan which I worry may be over ambitious but, as you say, we can not predict when we will receive the required data back (as mine too is coming from outside participants) so we have to take each week as it comes!

    Take care,
    Emily

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    Replies
    1. Hi Emily,
      It is nice to hear that someone else also feels that things may get a little out of hand over the next few weeks! I think it's a combination of the type of inquiry we are both doing -qualitative data is aways going to be a potential 'loose canon!' - and the amount of data collected, I have a feeling, is going to take an awful lot of sorting and analysis.
      However, I am so enthusiastic about my chosen topic area and, having already reflected on the benefits to my practice at even this early stage, I can't feel anything but excitement for what is to come. And anyway, what is that old saying? Isn't it 'sleep is for wimps!'
      I'm, so far, on track with everything I have planned but, as I've just commented about on your latest blog, I think today needs to be spent aligning inquiry goals with module dates.

      Here's to sharing, helping and inspiring each other over the coming weeks!

      Best of luck with everything,
      Sarah

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