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Conversation 9
Conversation 9 A conversation about your impact section.
Impact!
Impact can be on (adapted from Gusskey adapted from Kirkpatrick)
- Knowledge gained by the researcher
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- Application of knowledge to practice.
- Learning experiences of pupils
- Learning outcomes of pupils.
This is the nub of the MA!
You said you were doing research!
So what can you generalise from your research to other researchers and practitioners?
Have a look at these executive summaries and see how clear their impact is stated and the generilisations made.
Common faults are to claim learning of what is obvious. As this is Masters level work saying you learned that "lesson planning is good" is hardly revealing! Saying it "confirmed the rersearch that"...... well that another matter. The tone of a research account is important.
Return to your conceptual model
Some people spend too much time on impact on their learning, and impact on pupils learning. Too little time is spent on gathering insights that may be useful to other researchers in the field. This is the point of postgraduate research, yet not enough time is spent on drawin g out these conclusions.
Be self critical
There should be a good section on self-evaluation of the research. the findings should be tentative. A big mistake is not to have a clear connection with the data- claiming more than you have revealed. Show the bias.
You will note a lot of this relates to the aims, methodology, and other earlier sections.
Exercise
Please contribute some alternative words and phrases describing the following:
Summarising the issues and what you are trying to do
Sharing your findings
Debating the issues
Affirming what's known.
Contradicting and arguing
Changing (your ideas)
Suggesting alternative explanations
e.g "verifying"
These words and actions should be in your analysis
Constructing a Professional Autobiography.
Conversation 8
Sorry am I re-posting my comment here, as I am running behind on my project and have not commented for a long time. Just thought I would share my findings as I missed out on the previous conversation.
Any feedback would be appreciated! Am I the only one finding it extremely hard to teach full time and complete this MA project? I know it will be worth it in the end, but it's so pressurising!
It's has been such a long time since I wrote a comment! I am really falling behind on my MA Project. The only aspect I am struggling with is the Literature review, as there is so much information it is hard to narrow down the critical opinions!
I have now ran my project and I am please with the results; I have all my evidence that I need which includes: SEN data and interpreting this data into facts, observations of pupils when not in the classroom using ICT, I found they were more free to do things rather than being restricted in the classroom.
I also have evidence of interviews I conducted with the pupils before and after the course – you can really see the difference in the pupils, from beginning to end. I’ve also completed surveys, interviews, and focus groups, focusing on their feelings towards themselves and using ICT.
I am currently analysing the questionnaires – results so far indicate that students prefer the approach to positive thinking and raising self esteem – ICT has helped raise attainment in these pupils.
So I will have my results in my folder by next week, and hopefully within two/three weeks my literature review will be completed.
Ian/Alison I think I focused on too many books for my literature review, how many would you recommend? As a minimum I was thinking two authors, as well as journals and BETA website which has carried out research? Is this sufficient for the literature review?
Saira