Monday, October 5, 2015

Gemma Travis Memo #5

            When I first think of having mess in any type of school work, I become a little worried.  I usually like to keep everything organized and know what I have to do and when I have to do it, without any unexpected surprises.  However, since trying to develop research questions, and knowing that my questions might change completely as I continue observing, I have felt a little less organized than I would prefer. 
After reading the Cook article, I’m feeling more comfortable with this bit of disorganization.  The article helped me to realize that mess is completely natural with action research.   Cook discusses that there is a mess in action research that allows for creativity, spontaneity, and the unveiling of more questions to be answered.  I am experiencing some of this “bumbling” during these very beginning stages of the research process, and I anticipate that this could continue as I keep observing and collecting data.  The mess that I’m feeling at this stage of the process comes with the uncertainty of what my actual project will look like.  Will I come up with a completely different set of research questions? Will my data be able to help me answer these questions the way I hoped it would? What will be the overall outcome of my research? The only way to answer these questions is to become comfortable with the mess, continue observing, collect more data, be open to new questions, and move forward with the research process. 
As I continue, I expect that there will be more mess along the way.  Collecting data will likely be messy.  What I find through observations, interviews, surveys, pre/post-tests, and reflections might be unexpected and could bring about more questions. Conducting a literature review might have the same effects as I gather new information from other sources.  I need to be open to the mess in this process and comfortable with not having a concrete plan.  I can only hope that it will all come together neatly in my final research paper and presentation.

2 comments:

  1. Yes! I like that you pointed out that this is a creative process, Gemma. You can have a research plan, just like a lesson plan, but you also have to be ready to throw it out if needed, just like a lesson plan.

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  2. I felt the same way Gemma! Plus we are all in this mess together! I like to think that if I am being challenged in this process, I bet other people are too (that makes me feel a little better about the mess).

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