DR JAMES LAMB
  • About
  • Publications
  • BLOG
  • About
  • Publications
  • BLOG

Restart or What am I trying to do here?

28/9/2012

0 Comments

 
According to my the timeline I submitted within the dissertation Research Proposal,  this being late September, my dissertation should be well underway. Instead I'm at a less advanced stage than I was in April. Good work. I've now abandoned two previous dissertation plans for either re-covering old ground or following a route where I don't feel I have sufficient theoretical grounding (visual methodologies). 

I'm beginning to think that I approached the research topic the wrong way. 

In the first instance, I felt under pressure to come up with a topic to satisfy the needs of the Research Methods assignment. That isn't to say that I didn't believe in my original plan at the time, however my proposed research into how the distance education student visualises the university was conservative (and appropriately so considering the general lack of free thinking time I had during the assignment preparation). In hindsight, there was a certain amount of means-to-an-end pragmatism to my proposed research and, to be fair, it worked - I passed the assignment. 

My second plan (which lifted some of the more interesting elements from the first) would, I felt, sustain my interest. With a bit more thinking time over the summer, I was happy and excited about the idea of a comparison between how the distance education visualises and experiences the university compared to how it is represented in the prospectus and other promotional. An interesting idea but, as I quickly recognised when I met to exlore the idea with Sian, under-rehearsed and lacking a conceptual framework.

Third time around I'm taking a different approach and, on reflection, it strikes me that this would have been best all along. It's also the route I've taken with most other courses and assignments so it's a but surprising I didn't reach this stage before now. Rather than trying to conjure up an idea that might work, I've worked through the Dissertation Guide. And then I've re-read it again, highlighting key points. As I do with any piece of coursework, I spent some time considering 'what am I being asked to do here?' The Guide is excellent and makes it seem all the more ridiculous that I was trying to propose a dissertation when I didn't even know what a dissertation was. In particular, I found the suggestion that 'when deciding on a research topic you should have 3 sets of criteria in mind'. For emphasis and clarity, I've presented these in the diagram below. 
Picture
Useful criteria to shape my research question
Obviously, creating a diagram isn't a substitute for coming up with a research topic, but at least I've got a better of what I'm trying to do here and for that reason, I feel better about my dissertation than at any time over the last month or so.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Categories

    All
    Abandoned Ideas
    Abstract
    Acknowledge And Bib.
    Actions/things To Do
    Appendix
    Brian Eno
    Carey Jewitt
    Conclusion
    Constellation Map
    Data
    Data Emergent Ideas
    Digital Spaces
    Dissemination
    Dissemination Rationale
    Eca
    Ethics
    Fitzpatrick
    Glossary
    Hypertext Links
    Ideas
    Image
    Interviews
    Kress
    Land
    Literature/reading
    Lit Review
    Meetings
    Methodology
    Music
    Natasa Lackovic
    Observation
    Photography
    Research Proposal
    Sian
    Soundtrack
    Stephen Hunter
    Time Needed For M
    Title
    Uni Crest
    Vectors
    Video
    Visual

    Archives

    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012

    Timeline

    Picture
    Other stuff
    Resources page
    Moodle
    EDC13
[email protected]