Tuesday, 8/2/2011, Tuesday, 25/1/2011, Tuesday, 18/1/2011 & Tuesday, 4/1/2011
Why should I do research?
Why should I do research?
Hhhhmmmm ... the stereotype answers - Research allows you to pursue your interests, to learn something new, to hone your problem-solving skills and to challenge yourself in new ways with a product that represents the distillation of your interests and studies, and possibly, a real contribution to knowledge.
Being a teacher myself, why should I do research? Teacher researcher... hmmm nice title though. Yet, am I suitable @ eligible to garner such title? As research experts quoted - Teacher researcher is a teacher involving in certain inquiry that is intentional, systematic, public, voluntary, ethical, and contextual. The term teacher-researcher is an important term because it has redefined the roles as teachers. Teacher-researchers raise questions about what they think and observe about their teaching and their students' learning. They collect student work in order to evaluate performance, but they also see student work as data to analyze in order to examine the teaching and learning that produced it.
Bla... bla... bla... mind boggling...
All of these came into my head as I doodled down in my notebook as I put on my thinking cap to create my outline research proposal. Hmmm the brainstorming went as follows:
1. Must get the topic area of research - a punch in the line explaining concisely of what I will be studying. Of course but how to get it? Must have an issue/s @ problem/s that I want to help resolve in the educational field... think, think, think!
2. The problem statement - what's it to me and what significance to others? Am I personally involved in this study- self satisfaction? a golden ticket for promotion @ an honorable contribution to my fellow countrymen's children and the Malaysian educational system??? hhmmm.... I would say how can I help my little adorable children in school, in which area of the English subject... let me rephrase, what particular skills do they mostly dread....
Think, think, think! ....listing down in my thoughts.. Aha - writing! Yes, not only students but also teachers are not fond of teaching and learning this skill, actually not the skill itself but the process of how to teach and learn it is a dry complex matter and in dire need to be injected with a more humanistic or emotional approach.Young students need support - emotionally and academically in school. They love companionship and curious with new things or skills to learn and master. Bull's eye! I have found my topic. Cooperative learning in the primary school writing class. Hmmm.. focus focus.. which area of writing... most often neglected... - Aha! Prewriting! Yes, I guess I have my area of study already tentatively... sigh...so now I have a purpose and objective to do my research study - and sample too - primary ESL teachers and students.
3. Research questions - must be precise and concise. Straight to the point to what you want to find your answers in the problem issues of the study. hmm... I want to know if the primary students will enjoy learning writing if they were put into groups and do group activities. What are the benefits from group activities, emotionally or academically, or both?
4. The research design, instruments, procedures, data analysis - how am I going about in my quest to find these answers to unfold my problem issues... hmm something like a treasure hunt using a map, a compass, searching tools and critical intuition..
quantitative versus qualitative design?
survey questionnaires, interviews @ observations?
cross sectional @ longitudinal method? How long will this research study go on to gather data info...
then the data gathered, what am I supposed to do? How to analyze it? Data analysis tools? .. spss statistical descriptive, frequency analysis, mean, standard deviation, percentages....data tabulation @ pie charts versus bar graphs, ... cross case content analysis, field journals to find emergent themes.. and member's and expert check, interator - giving more reliability and validity to my intended research study besides using the cronbach alpha and standard deviation...
Ooooh forgot one incy thingy - very very important.
5. The literature review! Who are the experts @ researchers that may help support my findings? Local @ international? Can be theorists also... principles to support the teaching approach, psychology effects etc.. Who eh??? Must have at least ten... gotta find other research articles that have studied in writing in primary level and cooperative learning - international @ Malaysian context.... hmmm if local context a bit difficult especially studies in primary school level... well it'll be an honour though if I could be one of the first to contribute to the local literature and knowledge about cooperative learning in prewriting in the primary schools...
Etc...etc...etc...etc... now for more gory details in the outline research proposal..... have to do massive homework to start the groundwork! hmm... need a really heavy and reliable tractor to excavate these though... Focus! Focus! Focus! Perseverance prevails.
Tuesday, 22/2/2011
My research study will be planning to be a case study to investigate a phenomenon- cooperative learning in prewriting activities in the Malaysian primary school writing class. Phenomenology research is conducted to know the meaning, structure or essence of the lived experience of a particular person/group of people regarding a particular phenomenon. It describes how the respondent would feel when experiencing a particular phenomenon by conducting in-depth interview to gain access to individual’s life. I aim to also have an ethnographic design observation so that I can capture the natural setting of the upper level primary writing classroom in Sk Taman Putra Perdana 2 and observe the students’ cooperative behaviours and the teacher’s teaching in the prewriting activities.
Tuesday, 1/3/2011
Who will be my population and sample? Hmm... for my small scale study, I think I will only have a sample not population. In my research study I propose to use a clustered random sampling for the Year 4 students in SK Taman Putra Perdana 2 and purposive sampling for 4 ESL teachers in that school and 1 convenient sample where I will plan to enter that selected teacher’s writing class for observations. Why I chose Year 4 students.... I view these group of upper level students are the best group to be investigated to examine their perceptions of prewriting activities and cooperative learning as they are the foundation for the upper level primary students’ writing skill development.
Tuesday, March 8th, 2011
My instrumentation for my study would involve in-depth interview and non participant observations in the writing classroom. These instruments would use the cross sectional method which will be administered once throughout the study. That is why my study has a case study research design. As advised by Dr. Izaham, I have adopted and adapted the students’ behaviour checklist and the teachers’ teaching checklist from other resources. I had to take note also his recommendation for doing a few pilot tests to study the categories in the checklists and interview questions for validity and reliability.
Tuesday, 15 March 2011
How am I to analyzed my data gathered in my study? If I am gathering the quantitative data I can use the SPSS using descriptive statistics - frequency analysis and inferential statistics – t-test, alpha cronbach, mean and standard deviation. Hehehe.. that’s all that I really understood while the others I have to do more homework in the research method textbook. I am totally indebted to my classmate Atef for teaching me these basic SPSS skills to aide me in my research later on. I have finalized that for my research proposal, I would be using the qualitative data analysis – analytical analysis using the cross case content analysis from the interview transcripts and field notes derived from the observation checklists.
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
How formulate effective research questions? In order for to get my research questions, I had to go through many rephrasing and replacement of word choice all through the semester. In the end, I finally thought I had my final research questions finalized; Dr Izaham refined them to become more specific based on the purposes and statement of the problem in the study. Now that I have my RQs then I was on my way to do my homework for other researchers’ studies to support in my literature review map.
Tuesday, 29th March 2011
Today was my research proposal presentation. I was relieved when Dr Izaham remarked it was alright. Kudos to him actually for giving me guidance and insights into creating the research questions in chapter 1 and the research design, instrumentation and procedures in chapter 3 during his consultation hour the day before. Truthfully, I also did not know what exactly the chapters in a research proposal were and how to write it out. I am grateful to my classmate Nurul Syuhadah and Marina for showing me the ropes of writing the research proposal and Faridatul for inviting me to join her to meet up with Dr. If it weren’t for them I would not be able to come up with my research proposal accurately. Thus, “An examination on cooperative learning strategy in prewriting activities: A case study of a primary school in Malaysia” was created.
Valuable points that I have to make sure before writing the research questions are – make sure the problem statement is observable, measurable and that the problem investigated must be supported by other researchers; research questions must be precise and specifically to what they want to unfold in the study and the purpose and objective of the study; the instrumentation used must be aligned with the most suitable data analysis tool.
Tuesday, 05 April 2011
The test today really was an eye opener for me to apply what I had learnt all through this semester in EDU 702. Hehehe... as usual I am still not an expert yet. I got all confused with differentiating what is non random variable with random variable and correlational with causal-comparative research. Jumbled up all my points in that part, but I am proud to say that I know what is qualitative research method and quantitative method.
Qualitative – a study in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of or interpret phenomenon in terms of the meanings people bring to them and knowledge is developed by primarily verbal data. It focuses on case studies and data is analyzed through the analytical analysis. For my research proposal, I am doing a case study in cooperative learning on prewriting activites in the primary school.
Quantitative – a study to develop knowledge by collecting numerical data on observable behaviours. It focuses on populations and samples and data is analyzed through numerical analysis.
From this knowledge, I have identified that in working field of education, both mixed method is beneficial and I intend to try to add the quantitative method later into my research proposal later for my dissertation.
Conclusion: Teacher as a Researcher
Action research begins in the middle of whatever you're doing something happens that you didn't expect- and you begin to wonder about what's going on. (Judith Newman, 1998)
As teachers, we know that the plans we make and the journeys we embark upon daily in our classrooms often to do not align. For me this is what makes teaching exciting and why I consider my role as a teacher researcher essential to the ongoing improvement of my practice. I had discovered through previous cycles of action research that my students' insights and questions could prompt me to ask new questions and investigate issues that I would never have anticipated. The beginning of such journeys focused on questions involving my classroom practice. Usually I was interested in implementing a new strategy in my classroom such as novel discussions or class meetings to discover how theses practices might contribute to my vision of a caring, inclusive community where students had a voice in their own learning.
As teachers we need to be open to being surprised by critical incidents, including well laid plans that went awry and activities that took off beyond our expectations. Part of this journey involved the realization that I could share control in the initial development of my inquiry. Issues important to me are often also important to my students. The tension I felt in my classroom was shared by many of my students. By sharing and listening to each others' perceptions we created ways to try to address everyone in our classroom community. The students and I planned, acted and reflected together to improve our environment.
Researching and reflecting on my practice, and engaging with the existing theories in the literature of philosophy with children, led me to the realisation that there was divergence between my values and my practice. As my practice evolves, I am continuously learning. The knowledge that I have generated is personal and true for this year’s context. It is laden with my values and imbued with my personal sense of what is right. Perhaps next year’s students will present a new set of challenges. If so, I can build on the knowledge I have gained from this year. Thus, the transformation of my learning from year to year will generate new personal, professional knowledge till I will reach the stage in my professional development where I can confidently say that I have generated my own epistemology of practice. By doing so, I must keep on thrusting myself in the world of research.
