What is guiding my research is what I want to discover. I am passionate about students learning and keeping developmental students in school. Too many of them drop out before they get out of their developmental courses. I don't want them to do that. I want them to understand that we are all developmental in something (for me, it's auto repair. I can change a tire and change my oil, but that's about as far as my mechanic ability goes!). So, part of what is guiding my project is trying to keep developmental students in school. How can we help them to integrate into the academy?
Now, that takes me back to my original thoughts about trying to combine reading and writing skills into a single class or into a grouped couplet. I need to spend more time on my methodology because I don't really know what I want to find out or how I want to discover it. (Assessment is definitely one of my weakest links.) I want to collect student papers and other artifacts to give me a grounding for what they are writing and how they are writing. But, I don't think those writings will give me enough of the whole story. Therefore, I want to do interviews and journaling so that I can, perhaps, gain greater insight into what the students are thinking. I'm choosing this particular methodology mostly because it seems to be the most student-centered and allows the students a voice in my research. I want them to tell the story of what is happening as I struggle to figure out how to make it better. This is what I am "passionately committed" to.
I am struggling to figure out how to add some quantitative to this kind of research though. I definitely love the qualitative because of the story and voice elements. But, there is a part of me (maybe the sciencey part) that doesn't feel that the research is complete unless I throw in some numbers. What would I count though? Or, do I need to count anything? Can I just put some anti-itch cream on that part of me that's itching to add numbers? If not, how do I take a closer look at what's causing the itch?
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Tanya-
ReplyDeleteI love that you are finding a way to merge your practical concerns in the classroom with theoretical concerns about research and data collection. The teacher-researcher position is a powerful one that many of us come to find connection with. The interesting thing to me is that it seems no matter what focus I take concerning rhetoric (multimedia, public rhetorics, etc.) it always leads back to my classroom.
Anyway, I totally share your passion for student success and I am not surprised at all that this is the position from which you work as a scholar and researcher.
Jen