Recommended reading: Doing your research project

Recommended reading: Doing your research project
by Karyn Romeis | Mon, 11/24/2008 - 05:54

There are a lot of books out there aimed at helping students with research projects, but this one by Judith Bell (published by Open University Press) is - currently - my favourite. It is astonishingly readable. As evidence of this fact, mine has beach sand caught in it! I genuinely did read it on a beach in Spain.

True. It isn't aimed specifically at online learning, but I think the principles hold... and please tell me that we don't think that learning online and learning offline are two discrete activities!

In section I of the book, Bell prepares the ground. She explores a range of approaches to research including action research, case studies, surveys, experimentation, ethnography, grounded theory and narrative inquiry. She provides guidance on how to plan the project and addresses issues such as ethics/integrity, information management, literature searching and review.

Section II focuses on data collection, addressing the issues associated with documentary evidence, questionnaires, interviews, observation studies and diaries.

Section III provides guidance on evidence interpretation and reporting, as well as addressing that oh so difficult part: actually writing the report. I don't know about you, but for me, this is the rub - finding the motivation to stop faffing about with research and reading and discussing and and and... and actually writing the blooming thing!

Perhaps I am biased towards Bell because she identifies first person narrative as a legitimate methodology. This is something you'll also find addressed by Jack Whitehead in his PhD thesis. It is wonderful to see the aggregation of personal experience and anecdotes finally being afforded some credibility within academic circles.

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