Seminar - The Research Process

The journal for this week involved reading a chapter in a book called Learning How to Learn. This chapter was about Vee diagrams and connecting concepts, theories, events, and methodology together. We are supposed to connect the ideas of this chapter with our practicum site.

Quantitative research is one of my passions. One of the reasons I went into the field of school psychology was because I would have summers off to pursue research ideas (should I choose to). The chapter in Learning How to Learn discussed some of the key elements of a good research project. While I have rarely used a Vee diagram to formulate the research process, it would not hurt to use it. Essentially, what a Vee diagram does is make sure you are covering all of your bases. It can be useful when having to defend a research project to a committee.

The Vee diagram is surrounded by numerous key questions that should be answered when deciding on a research project. The chapter in Learning How to Learn provides these questions and is an excellent tool to refer to. The chapter includes questions regarding concepts, theory, data collection, and what it all means. Coming from a more traditional background in research, I had to make connections from my previous learning with the present ideas. I discovered that they do not actually conflict, but explain things in a different way. My background explained things factually while the present chapter explained things theoretically.

Of course the chapter led me to consider my own research project and how to go about it. While I am still attempting to evaluate the school I am working at, a common theme that has come up is school attendance. It's difficult to imagine a school that does not have an attendance problem, but I am confident they exist at least in small numbers. As Novak & Gowin (1984) so adequately express, the most difficult part is coming up with the research question. The present plan is to look at what kinds of solutions are out there in regards to school attendance. Ideally, I would then like to apply and evaluate a model.