Initial idea:
The Action research plan came to my mind as an expansion of the Artefact and some personal observations of how the technical space is used. I wanted to quantify and qualify the usage distribution and reflect on how we can improve diversity and be a space where students feel welcome to explore, experiment and develop their skills in however way it feels right for them.
On my artefact, I reflected on the idea of making the space more equal, open, and fair. Based solely on my personal anecdotal observation of unequal usage distribution amongst courses, students’ backgrounds, confidence levels and language barriers. See below:
I wanted my research project to be a chance to quantify and therefore give significance on the issues I observed and reflected upon. Not to say that personal observations alone are not relevant, but they can gain strength when paired with data and analysed using appropriate tools. I embarked on a journey to organise my ideas and articulate where I wanted to get to – see scribbles below:
It is easy to see how I quickly found many questions and possible ways to deal with this project. It soon become a very ambitious project and also a quite exciting one, perhaps too big for the timeframe, but I continued on developing the idea.
After attending the workshop on 25th October, I strongly resonated with the discussion around the Action research spiral by Kosher (Kosher et al, 2010). It was discussed how research sometimes can be a spiral of going back to the original question, reframing it, spiralling back and perhaps even changing the question based on reflection.
O’Leary’s cycles of research (Kosher et al, 2010: 8):
References:
Koshy E, Koshy V, and Waterman H (2011) Action research in healthcare. London: Sage.